


Unresolved

by phoenike



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, First Time, M/M, Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-29 11:10:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11439633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenike/pseuds/phoenike
Summary: He’d won. Sloane Kelly’s life was in his hands. All that remained was the killing shot. But at the brink of victory, he stood filled with cold dread. For instead of the thugs he’d expected, Sloane had walked into his trap with Scott Ryder at her heels.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I hated the cave scene, and this fic happened. Slow build with eventual smut as usual. Default Scott, I describe him a bit here and there.
> 
> I know that Reyes’s writer has said that he’s in his late 20’s, but you can pry my headcanon about him being 33-34 out of my cold, dead hands. It’s not the only departure from canon in this story, but I thought it’s the only one worth mentioning, since it doesn’t really come up until later.
> 
> As always, I'm super grateful to my awesome betas. In this case, Alessariel and Oleander's One. Alessariel even made a ridiculously awesome banner for the fic ([click here for larger view](http://i.imgur.com/LEWe7fK.jpg)): 

The moment Reyes saw the four people who walked into the cave, he knew everything was about to go to hell.

For months, he’d worked like a dog. Growing his network, establishing contacts and routes, infiltrating Sloane’s ranks. Undermining her dirty little empire until he was ready to strike where she’d thought herself the safest — her inner circle. And now all that effort was finally about to pay off.

He’d won. Sloane Kelly’s life was in his hands. All that remained was the killing shot. But at the brink of victory, he stood filled with cold dread. For instead of the thugs he’d expected, Sloane had walked into his trap with Scott Ryder at her heels.

The comm implant in Reyes’s ear hummed to life. _“Tracking four targets. Just say the word, boss,”_ came Adik’s voice from it.

Three weeks. He’d had no less than three whole weeks to find out what they were up to. How the hell had he not seen this coming?

.

.

To say that the Pathfinder stood out from the usual seedy crowd in Kralla’s Song would have been the understatement of what had been the strangest year of Reyes’s life.

Even from a distance, the resemblance to Alec Ryder was obvious — and more than skin deep, if the excitement on the comms was to be believed. For months, reports had kept flowing in from Eos, Voeld and Havarl. About outposts established and the Nexus saved from starvation. About the co-operation of the angara secured. About kett bases wiped out. All of it with one name, one face behind it. Hell, even Evfra sounded impressed — and Evfra de Tershaav was a hard man to impress.

But everyone wanted someone to come and save the day. They’d believed in Sloane Kelly, too, and what had become of her? After a year on Kadara, Reyes Vidal no longer believed in heroes. Still, it would’ve been lying to say that he wasn’t curious.

He made his way to the bar and tapped at the counter. Two shots of the poison Umi sold as whiskey appeared, along with the usual skunk-eye. Next to him, the Pathfinder was still scanning the crowd, waiting for someone who better matched his expectations for an associate of the angaran resistance, no doubt.

From up close, the guy seemed exactly as young as the reports said he was, patchy stubble, a bit of height and a fair amount of solid muscle on Reyes notwithstanding. The spotless blue-on-whites that hugged his athletic frame made him look like something straight out of an Initiative recruitment ad. Nice enough to look at... but on Kadara, wearing an Andromeda Initiative uniform with such pride was an open invitation to get mugged and shanked in a dark alley. No one who had accomplished so much could be that stupid, so perhaps the Pathfinder just had no reason to be afraid? They said he was a biotic, and a powerful one. He didn’t seem terribly dangerous — too neat, too nice, too... picket-fence white, if Reyes was being honest — but based on what Reyes had heard, in that dark alley, Scott Ryder would have been the one to watch out for.

“You look like you’re waiting for someone,” Reyes said and held out a glass. You could tell a lot from whether someone shared a drink with you, and how.

Even before the man turned, Reyes could see the refusal forming in his head. A guy who looked like that had to be used to people trying to pick him up at bars. Or anywhere, really. And Reyes was willing to bet a significant amount of hard-earned credits that the Pathfinder’s tastes ran more to busty asari dancers than dashing but definitely not female-shaped strangers in disreputable dens of vice.

But the expression of disinterest he expected did not come. Instead, he found himself staring into the most disarming pair of baby blues he’d ever seen on a grown man.

Twenty-two. Twenty fucking two, and already changing lives wherever he went. What the fuck had Reyes been doing at twenty-two? Drinking himself blind with other fly jocks between dummy runs. Racking up gambling debts on Omega every shore leave. Getting his dick sucked by anyone willing. Hurrying up and waiting to be no one.

He could see the exact moment the Pathfinder realized who he was. The startled curiosity that had dawned in the man’s cornflower blue eyes was replaced by a more businesslike focus. “I’ve got time for a drink,” he said, half-amiable, half-wary, and accepted the offered glass.

Hell. He even sounded like that advertisement Reyes had imagined. _How far will you go? Find out what it takes. Sign up today for the greatest adventure humanity has undertaken._

Reyes had a bad feeling that a damned recruitment ad wasn’t going to be nearly the last thing he’d imagine before this thing was through.

.

.

“You realize you’ve mentioned him three times now?” Keema asked over the drinks and scheming they’d shared in his back room in Tartarus.

Reyes leaned over to pour himself another shot. “And? I can hardly describe plans that involve someone without mentioning them.”

Moments like this, it was easy to forget that Keema was considered a hardass by angaran standards. Even Evfra could make Reyes feel like he was talking to a 6’5”, scarred, assault-rifle wielding abuela. Then again, some of the scariest people Reyes had known had been abuelas... so, perhaps it was time to abandon this train of thought before his own _yaya_ decided to cross death and darkspace to put some fear of God and old women into him.

The angara sat back in her chair, far too amused for Reyes’s peace of mind. “I’ve known you for almost a year now. You’ve _never_ waited this long to make a move on someone. I think you like him. You should tell him the truth.”

The truth.

_I’m the Charlatan. I intend to kill Sloane Kelly and seize Kadara Port. Oh, and the missions I’ve been sending you on — they had less to do with aiding the resistance than thinning out the rest of the playing field. No hard feelings?_

Sure. Because of course his attraction to the Pathfinder (and possibly the Pathfinder’s attraction to him, though he was sure the guy would never actually find the courage to do anything about it) weighed more on the scales than the future of a whole colony. Ryder had ideals. Integrity. People like him rarely took too well to being used and lied to, like Reyes was doing. One could hardly grow soft and risk losing the support of a very important ally at a crucial moment just because said ally looked like a significant portion of one’s wet dreams... and maybe also didn't in fact deserve to be led by the nose like a damned bull in a ring.

Reyes flashed his teeth. It was supposed to be a smile.

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, and I intend to keep it that way.”

The alien’s nebular eyes lingered on him, appearing to see far too much as usual. The impression was anthropomorphic bullshit, of course — not even the angaran sense of electroreception could detect the minuscule synaptic voltage changes that made up human thought — but it was hard to look one of her kind in the eye and not suspect that they were somehow able to read your mind, at least a little.

“That’s very protective of you,” Keema said. “Are you sure you’re not simply afraid of what he’ll think of you?”

“Please. I’m not in love with him. I understand the necessity of working with the Initiative. That doesn’t mean I plan to bend over and let them shove their self-righteous pontificating right up my ass.”

Keema chuckled. “I see. So the way your eyes light up when you say his name is a sign of caution, hm? Good to know. I learn something new about you humans every day.”

Reyes refrained from more objections that would undoubtedly just have deepened the hole he’d already dug for himself.

Served him right, though. By now, he ought to have known better than to try and lie to an angara about _feelings._

.

.

The first time they kissed, he was probably more surprised than the guard standing at the door.

It felt a little like being pummeled by a terrified force of nature. Scott Ryder never did anything by halves, and throwing off suspicion by kissing the person nearest to him senseless seemed to be no exception. Reyes had little choice but to let it happen. Fortunately, there were worse fates than being pounced on and inexpertly but enthusiastically smooched by approximately hundred and ninety centimeters of twenty-two-year-old Pathfinder who clearly had no idea what the hell he was doing.

So, the Initiative’s young white knight liked boys. _Bad_ boys. Who would have thought?

.

.

The second time they kissed, Reyes knew he was screwed.

He could’ve blamed the whiskey. Or the romantic setting, with the golden sunset turning Kadara Port into a magical maze of bazaars and bridges instead of the old, odorous place it was. But he would have been lying.

Now that Ryder was no longer trying to smother them both in his panic, kissing him was fucking poetry. Like... the setting of a different sun, lost two million light years and six centuries away. Even after the alcohol and heart-to-heart they’d shared, Ryder seemed a bit nervous, as if this — kissing a man, or possibly just kissing in general — wasn’t something he’d done too often... as unlikely as it seemed, for someone so attractive.

_I’m kissing a virgin. Or very nearly one._

As if Reyes needed more reason to feel physically addled. He wanted to push the man down and take him right there on the godforsaken storage containers. To hell with Kadara and the exiles. To hell with Sloane Kelly. He couldn’t remember when he’d last needed to lose himself in someone so badly.

But —

The damned kid thought he had _feelings_. Reyes could tell. The way Ryder’s breath hitched. How his eyelashes fluttered. The weight of the hand that settled at the small of Reyes’s back. If asked, Ryder would most likely have vehemently denied it, but Reyes knew that he was hoping for more than just a meaningless fuck.

It shouldn’t have mattered. There was a reason Reyes wouldn’t have won popularity contests among his exes. He didn’t consider himself a monster, but he had a way of letting his dick do his thinking for him. And right now it was telling him in no uncertain terms to seize the unlikely opportunity life had thrown in his way.

It shouldn’t have mattered. But it did. And _that_ bothered him, enough to finally shake him out of the lust that was starting to cloud his judgment. For if it mattered... that meant he had something to lose. That somewhere down the line, he’d started hoping for more than just another meaningless fuck, too.

Now, of all times, he couldn’t afford the complications that entailed.

It had to be some kind of divine punishment, having to be the one to pull away. God, he needed the mother of all cold showers. Twice his usual water allowance, probably.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “As much as I want to continue this, it would make me forget... a prior engagement.”

Ryder swayed. Flushed and a bit dizzy. Mouth still parted and red from kissing, usually so neat brown hair a little tousled at the side where Reyes’s fingers had been.

A cold shower. Sure, and after that, the bullet in the head he deserved.

“Prior engagement? Now?” Ryder managed, a bit offended. And who could blame him? Reyes made an effort to jumpstart his two remaining working brain cells.

“Well, _someone_ put a stop to the oblivion factories, so there are a lot of unhappy brokers and dealers down below right now. I’m meeting a few, to see if their connections could be put to better use. Perhaps something to do with Dr. Nakamoto’s clinic. Those people...” He tsked. “They keep odd hours. It wasn’t easy to reach them. I’d rather not lose the opportunity.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. He _was_ looking into growing his network from the disrupted drug trade. Just... not right now.

“Oh. That’s...” Ryder blew out a breath and ran his fingers through his hair. Then he let out a soft laugh and gave Reyes a sidelong smile. “You know, sometimes I think everyone on Kadara is a raging asshole. And then I remember you also live here.”

_Shit._ Reyes cleared his throat. At least he didn’t need to feign looking uncomfortable with the undeserved praise.

“Please. It’s merely a business opportunity.”

“Uh huh.” Ryder’s smile widened as he leaned in for a last lingering kiss that turned Reyes’s bones into warm putty.

Two days. Just two more days, and everything would be resolved, one way or another. Either he’d be dead. Or Kadara would be his. And then —

.

.

_“Boss?”_

Back in the dank cave, mottled yellow and shrouded in the rank mist that rose from the hot springs deeper underground, Reyes tried to make sense of what he saw.

Four figures came to a halt in the middle of the cave, lit by a shaft of sunlight that pierced through a hole in the roof. An old krogan, covered in grisly trophies like something out of a history book. An angaran resistance fighter as wide as he was tall with a kett sniper rifle on his back. Sloane fucking Kelly. And behind her, Scott Ryder, suited up and armed to the teeth. The champion in shining armor, come to save the day — or ruin it, depending where you stood.

Reyes blinked and shook his head, like a pilot trying to regain his senses after being struck by lightning in low atmo.

He had to give it to the bitch. For once, she’d managed to take him by surprise.

_“Boss,”_ hissed Adik’s disembodied voice in his ear, urgent now.

Had Ryder been playing them both? Working with Sloane behind Reyes’s back? Was he capable of such deception?

Or was there a more benign explanation for his presence? Sloane had to know that she was walking into a trap. She needed witnesses. Preferably neutral ones. And with the feeds in his suit transmitting everything to the Tempest and his AI recording all that happened, the Pathfinder was most definitely a witness.

Reyes lacked the time and intel required to make an informed decision. He had to abort the op.

The word was already on his tongue.

Everything would continue the same as before. He’d tell his crew that the takeover was postponed and go on pretending to be a relatively successful smuggler-for-hire who dabbled in a bit of information brokering on the side. Hell, to take the fantasy even further... if he wanted to return to the Initiative, Ryder could probably make it happen. He could go back to flying scouting missions off the Nexus like he’d done after being thawed out of cryo. Perhaps play housewife to a certain Pathfinder while at it? Happily fucking forever after. Literally, if fate would have it. Who cared if it bored him to tears.

And on Kadara, Sloane Kelly would continue to rule.

Reyes was too proud to pretend that he wasn’t in the game for personal gain, but he liked to think of himself as possessed of something that resembled a conscience. Sloane... Sloane was a fire burning out of control. More dangerous every day she was allowed to remain in power. Under her thumb, Kadara would keep festering, an open wound turning more poisonous by the minute. The protection fees and beatings she called ‘taxes’ and ‘justice’ would continue. Oblivion trade would rebound as soon as someone succeeded in reconstructing Nakamoto’s formula. People who could barely afford to feed themselves would still be thrown in the badlands for failing to turn in enough credits to the Outcasts. Worst of all, Sloane would keep infecting others with her hate of the Nexus and the Collective, until it erupted in open violence.

One word, to doom them to war.

If God existed — and the last fourteen months had done their damnedest to undermine what little faith Reyes still possessed — the bastard certainly had a twisted sense of humor.

“Negative,” he said, low enough for no one at the bottom of the cave to hear. “No shooting unless someone pulls a gun on me. I’m going to see how this plays out.”

The short pause that followed betrayed Adik’s confusion.

“ _Yes, boss,”_ she said then and cut the comm.

Reyes had never truly embraced the nickname given to him on Kadara, and only in part because he hated code names. _The Charlatan._ For a long time, he’d thought it made him sound like some two-bit snake-oil salesman. But now, as he stepped out of the safety of darkness and anonymity, he recognized the truth in what he’d thought of as a misnomer. From the day he stole his first ride to the city to cheat _cuicos_ out of their pocket money at seven, to the years he’d spent skirting the law in the Terminus, to the mad moment he decided to use every credit he owned to get his records fixed and join the Initiative... every decision he’d ever made had brought him here. To becoming the true trickster of the story. And now, by way of revealing his identity, he was finally turning into the _real_ Charlatan.

Schrödinger would’ve been proud.

“You look like you’re waiting for someone,” he said, loud enough for his voice to echo from the damp stone walls.

Four heads swiveled toward him.


	2. Chapter 2

“Reyes?” Ryder asked, visibly taken aback at the sight of him, voice distorted by the speaker in his helmet.

 _So, he didn’t know._ Whatever Pyrrhic victory Reyes would end up having to enjoy, at least he’d go into it with the satisfaction of not having been outwitted. But the fact remained that now, Ryder did know — and so did his whole crew. Which meant that, once again, Reyes was banking everything he’d fought for on an instinct.

The thrill of risking his life was definitely not what it had been when he was younger. But other than just backing quietly away, he’d had little choice but to show himself. Adik’s modified Viper was powerful enough to knock out Sloane’s kinetic barriers with one shot and put her down with the other — but only if she wasn’t protected by something else in between. Say, a biotic field. A firefight would ensue, and one mind-bending moment of passion notwithstanding, Reyes was reluctant to bet his life on a still tentative emotional connection.

He kept his expression carefully neutral, save for the trace of a smile he seemed unable to ever completely erase. No reason to betray that he’d been just as surprised as the rest of them.

True to form, Sloane dismissed his appearance with a disgusted look.

“I’m here for the Charlatan, not some third-rate smuggler.”

Once, the casual insult would’ve provoked a comeback about pathetic excuses for backwater tyrants. Now Reyes stood silent, poised at the edge of light and darkness, never one to underestimate the worth of a well-placed dramatic gesture. Theatrical to the last, his _yaya_ would have sighed.

“They’re one and the same,” said Ryder.

 _Clever boy._ Reyes’s pride came with a sting of irony.

“Surprise.”

The moment Sloane wheeled to take him in again was almost worth the shit he was no doubt about to go through for revealing himself.

 _Yes, it’s me. It always was. Playing you every step of the way. Chatting up your confidantes. Attending your parties._ He’d even handled some of the more palatable jobs she’d offered.

“So. This whole time, you’ve been lying to me,” Ryder said, the hurt plain and clear in his voice.

“Not about everything. You know who I really am.”

He might as well have claimed that he was able to turn shit to gold. Well, at least Ryder’s reaction seemed to prove that he was incapable of the kind of pathological levels of deception that playing both sides of this game would have required. Had the Cornelian dilemma at hand not made it a bit too ironic, Reyes might have felt relieved. But that still amounted to only one of his chips having been cashed in.

A volatile bastard or no, it didn’t take Sloane long to recover.

“How do I know you’re not merely another decoy?”

“You don’t. Perhaps the Charlatan doesn’t exist. Or perhaps we’re all the Charlatan.”

Sloane sneered at the feint, but seemed to accept the truth of it. “You said you wanted to settle things. How?”

How, indeed. To speak of imaginary compromises now would be to risk Sloane growing bored and pulling a gun on him — no. He had to come up with something outrageous enough to give her pause. But what?

He dropped off the ledge, landing on his feet on the floor of the cave.

“A duel. You and me, right now. Winner takes Kadara Port.”

His commlink rustled as a sign that it had been activated. But only silence came through.

And Adik was far from the only one he’d managed to strike speechless. Sloane’s face went through at least three different reactions. The Pathfinder and his companions just stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Reyes had to admit, he wasn’t entirely sure they were mistaken.

“You want to avoid war by shooting each other?” Ryder blurted.

“Two people shooting each other is better than a lot of people shooting each other.”

 _Are they really buying this horseshit?_ As if he was going to let Sloane take a crack at putting a bullet in him. He half expected someone to start laughing. But no one did. Hook, line and sinker, even Ryder fell for it, after all the times Reyes had shown that subterfuge, not direct confrontation, was his chosen method of operation. All he needed was time, and tentative proof that he could count on Ryder’s support — or at least not being shot on the spot, once he made his move.

Later, he’d spend far too much time trying to understand why Sloane accepted. Perhaps it appealed to some kind of desire for violent justice in her. Diplomacy be damned; better to shoot your problems in the face, even if it created more enemies than it removed. Or perhaps she just knew that she was a better shot than him.

“I’ll take those terms,” she said and switched off her shield.

“What? No! Reyes,” Ryder said, as if pleading for sanity to reassert itself.

Had Reyes had any doubts left of Adik’s trust in him, they would have disappeared when she still didn’t take the shot as, like two gunslingers out of an old movie, he and Sloane started to circle each other.

It occurred to him that if he allowed Sloane to take him out — as she would, without so much as a flinch — it would spare him from having to look Ryder in the face, after. The thought lasted for all of a heartbeat, but later, he couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t considered it.

In the end, he’d made his choice the moment he left the shadows. What remained was doing what needed to be done. Because from how Ryder had just said his name, voice cracking at the end, he knew that the kid wouldn’t kill him. He might point a gun, go through the motions of righteous indignation. But he wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger.

Then again, he wouldn't need to. The Reyes Vidal he knew would die just the same.

_I’m sorry, Ryder._

At his whispered command, Adik’s shot rang from the stone, true as death.

.

.

_By the time Adik arrived, he’d been sitting in the dark hut for an hour with the dead._

_They’d been gone for three weeks, but he’d only found out about it after returning from Elaaden three days ago. Three days to blackmail, beat and bribe his way to finding out where they’d been left in the middle of nowhere. They’d found shelter in one of the prefab huts left behind by angaran miners and raiders, but with their omni-tools taken, they hadn’t been able to send word. Inevitably, what supplies they'd been afforded had run out._

_They’d all known that it would be dangerous to take a stand against Sloane. Some of them had chosen to stay hidden. Others..._

_Well, now he knew what Sloane would do to the others._

_They’d been scientists, not survival experts. Still, they’d tried to find a way. Improvising traps for hunting. An attempt at a water purifier. He’d never know if they’d meant to drink the toxic water. All he knew was that he’d come too late, and who to blame for their deaths._

_They buried the bodies behind the hut. A prayer for the dead came rusty from his mouth. It felt right, with all of them being baptized. All the while, he thought Adik’s black eyes were piercing through him, but when he looked, she was gazing over the valley instead, her dark profile unreadable. He’d saved her life, after the mutiny. How come he still knew so little of what she believed?_

_Sloane had saved them all, once. When they slept in their stasis pods after the Nexus first hit the Scourge. Not alone, but the rumor had it that without her there to force everyone to work together — at gunpoint if necessary — those first crucial hours and days and weeks might well have ended with all of them dying before they woke._

_Just a week ago, he’d seen her sitting on her throne. Kaetus at her side, Kadara at her feet. She’d taken to wearing barbaric armor and painting her face. How long before all that remained was the beast in the heart of darkness?_

_For a day, he mourned._

_Then, he started planning._

.

.

Only after the echo of the shot had faded did Reyes notice the gun in Sloane’s hand. A fraction of a second more, and it would’ve been him falling to his knees on the floor of the cave.

A chill ran down his spine, followed by a rush of relief. And finally, cold anger. Because from where a splintered hole had appeared in the ceramic plating over Sloane’s chest, he could tell that she wouldn’t suffer for long. She’d deserved worse, much worse than Adik’s perfect, merciful shot.

Sloane looked to him in disbelief as he pointed two fingers at her. “Bang,” he said, and with no small amount of satisfaction, watched her crumple down to the dirt and die.

A moment of silence would not have been misplaced to appreciate the importance of what had just happened. He was alive, and Sloane was not. But there was no time for gestures. The sound of boots hitting stone behind him told that Adik had dropped from her lookout.

“Prepare the crew,” he said. “Kadara Port is ours tonight.”

And then he was walking. Away from Sloane’s still warm body. Away from Ryder who stood staring at it through his helmet.

After the shadows, the sunlight that bathed the landscape outside threatened to blind him. From the mouth of the cave, Kadara looked... unchanged. The same pale-blue sky reached over the same craggy orange hills and earth, mottled by the same alien vegetation and beautiful turquoise lakes that would melt the flesh off your bones if you made the mistake of wading in. But even if it all looked the same, it wasn’t.

Sloane was dead. The head of the snake had been cut off.

A cigarette or two would’ve made the knowledge easier to process. But tobacco was one of the many luxuries they’d left behind them in the Milky Way.

The part of Reyes’s mind that was still — and would always be — capable of calculated thought realized that a duel was in fact a far better fiction to tell about Sloane’s demise than the Roekaar ambush he’d planned. It made for a good story, and a good story was often preferable to hard fact, especially if it promised a solution to people’s immediate problems and the benefit of not having to think for themselves.

In a way, fictions like that had been all any of them had when they threw in their lot with Jien Garson. He, too, had spun stories in his head about starting anew and making a different kind of name for himself in an unknown future. But the truth had a way of coming out, whether ordained by God or written in his genes or carved into him at an age that no one could ever truly leave behind. On some level, he’d known that — and still he’d signed his name in that contract made of daydreams and delusions. _I hereby relinquish all rights to sue the Initiative for..._ and what kind of soulless bureaucrat had thought it necessary to include a waiver in the boilerplate? They were two million light years away from the closest independent court. Any meaning their contracts still had could only be symbolic in nature. There was no going home, now. No day of reckoning to settle the score. The laws they’d brought with them only counted to the extent where they served a purpose toward survival, no matter what the leadership none of them had voted for chose to pretend.

Now it would be Reyes himself making the laws, for the exiles at least.

But he hadn’t won. Not yet. Sure, Sloane was dead, and good riddance. But one last gambit remained to be played out.

“Care to tell me what the fuck just happened?” came a familiar voice from behind him.

He turned, only to have his field of vision obstructed by a cloud of black hair as Adik stepped in to shield him. Weapons clicked free of holsters, barrels extended and safeties came off. Then all went still, tense like a thunderstorm about to happen.

“Stand down,” Adik said, her tone an open warning.

“Go ahead and make us, human,” rumbled the deep voice of an old male krogan.

Reyes inched sideways to see.

Three people had emerged from the cave, only to meet with the business end of Adik’s Sidewinder. She seemed unaffected at being outnumbered; by the krogan’s barbaric shotgun that had to weigh fifteen kilos, and the angara’s kett rifle, powerful enough to punch a hole the size of a fist in the both of them from such a short distance. In the middle of the Mexican standoff stood the Pathfinder, his hands on his hips, his helmet hanging from his waist and his face a mask of cold fury. An angel of vengeance, come to punish Reyes for all his good deeds.

“Put the guns away,” Ryder said.

It took a while, but eventually, his companions obeyed. Only Adik stood her ground, eyes and pistol leveled at the Pathfinder. She’d met him before, when posing as Reyes’s henchman on missions, and in Tartarus, where she always waited in a corner as he accepted clients, associates or underlings — but Reyes knew she wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

When Reyes called her name, her eyes flicked sideways to him. After a moment, she broke stance and holstered her gun without a word.

“To the Nomad,” Ryder said to his crew. “Wait for me there.”

“Look, kid —” the krogan started.

“Now.”

The angara cleared his throat. “Perhaps it is best to do as Ryder says,” he said and showed example by stepping away. Grumbling under his breath, the krogan followed. At Reyes’s command, Adik paced away as well, far enough not to hear but still in sight. Reyes knew it was the extent of what she’d agree to.

And yet they were still far from private.

“SAM,” Ryder said. “Cut my mission feeds to the Tempest and stop recording. Yes, body cam, audio, bio, did I fucking stutter?” His jaw clenched. “SAM. Cut. The fucking. Feeds!”

A few LEDs in Ryder’s hardsuit blinked out, signaling end of transmission. And then they were alone at last. Or as close to alone as possible, under the circumstances.

For a good ten seconds they stared at each other without a word.

Was it really only two days since that sunset above Kadara Port? Reyes had thought he knew the price of his choice in the cave. But it was a different thing to imagine it and to see it happen.

“Were you ever planning to tell me?” Ryder asked. “And try not to lie. If that’s something you’re capable of.”

Spoiling for a fight, then. And not without a reason. In Ryder’s shoes, at his age, Reyes would already have had his fists do the talking.

But patronizing would serve him just as poorly as aggression. Ryder wasn’t the proudest man Reyes knew — no one who possessed an honor too easily bruised would have joked at his own expense so congenially and so often — but trying to coddle his emotions would’ve been... unwise. The only choice Reyes had was unmitigated, painful honesty. Not something he excelled at, truth be told.

“Not unless necessary,” he admitted.

As much as the answer seemed to sting, it also appeared to convince Ryder that he’d chosen to tell the truth, for now. That, at least, was what Reyes concluded from the fact that he wasn’t being squashed like a bug.

“The angaran spy, your interest in the Roekaar murders. Everything you’ve done has been to undermine Sloane’s power. You’ve been using me the whole time.”

“An arrangement from which we have both benefited.”

“That’s a lousy fucking excuse for lying!” Ryder exploded, his finger stabbing air, then controlled himself again with obvious effort. “There’s this thing called informed consent,” he went on through his teeth. “Don’t know if you’ve heard. It means telling people what they’re getting into.”

“I’m sure it’s a very useful concept in a Presidium night club.” Reyes, too, was starting to feel his patience wear thin. “I’m sorry, Ryder, but hauling me over the coals seems a little disingenuous, given the circumstances. I was under the impression that you wanted nothing to do with Sloane. Yet here we are, and I can’t help but wonder — what exactly were you doing in her company?”

Ryder’s jaw worked. For a second, Reyes was sure that he was going to be told to take a short walk off the steepest cliff he could find.

“Sloane blackmailed me,” Ryder said, then. “Told me she’d consider the outpost if I played along and joined her as her bodyguard. Didn’t trust her own lieutenants, not after what happened to —” He glanced up and barked a laugh. “Huh, I guess you were behind that, too. What did he ever do to you?”

 _Except serve as the second in command for my worst enemy, you mean?_ “I told my people to take Kaetus unharmed. There were... complications.”

“And why should I believe you? The Collective hasn’t exactly treated its enemies with silk gloves before.”

“I happen to like Kaetus. It’s unfortunate that his loyalty to Sloane makes him impossible to reason with.”

“‘To reason with.’ To manipulate, you mean.” The caustic humor Ryder seemed to find in the thought was somehow worse than being simply yelled at. “I guess everyone really is just a pawn to you. You never trusted me for one fucking second.”

Trust. They’d known each other for three weeks, _por dios_. He wouldn’t have trusted his own mother with the truth. Then again, his mother had been a red sand addict who had smothered him with affection one day and screamed insults at him the next. No wonder he had trust issues. Or so his therapist had said, back in the Milky Way.

Ryder looked away and shook his head, as if still trying to believe it. “I’m an idiot.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. I’ve been at this a lot longer than you.”

Arrogance. Wrong call, from how Ryder’s blue eyes flashed as they fixed back on him.

“I know you’re angry at me now,” Reyes said. “We should let things calm down. Later, I can tell you everything.”

Ryder folded his arms. “Yeah, I’m sure you’ll have it all figured out by then. How to make it all sound like you’re fucking Gandhi. I don’t think so.”

“Fine. If you have questions, ask.” It came out a lot less complacent than Reyes had intended. He restrained his temper. Drawing attention to the fact that he wasn’t, in fact, obliged to tell Ryder anything did not improve what meager hopes of reconciliation he still entertained.

“Is Reyes even your real name?”

“It’s what my mother called me.”

“Why bother with that sham in the cave? You could’ve had Sloane shot the moment we came in.”

“Yes, but I’ve seen you fight. I wasn’t keen on getting shot in return before I had a chance to explain myself.”

“Were you planning this the whole time?”

“I’ve been planning this for a year, Ryder.”

Ryder shook his head. “Yeah. Well. Con-fucking-gratulations, _Charlatan_. I guess you got everything you wanted.”

The words hurt, far deeper than they should have.

“What I want is peace. Sloane would have brought war to Heleus. We don’t have the population to survive that. I didn’t do this to become another despot, Ryder.”

Ryder’s lip curled. He relaxed his arms from his chest, but only to clench his fists at his sides, as if he had trouble keeping them from doing something. Flinging Reyes against the cliff with a biotic field, perhaps. Or just plain old clocking him in the jaw.

“You better fucking not. You better fucking not be doing this for your own —”

A shuttle sputtered into view from behind the ridged hilltop, drowning him out.

They stood in silence as the vehicle landed nearby. Its side slid open, to let out two Collective members who nodded to Reyes in passing as they headed for the cave. More respectful than just an hour ago, if he wasn’t mistaken. They didn’t know his true identity, but in absence of a leader they needed someone to look up to, and as one of the Charlatan’s alleged representatives, he was now a recipient of trickle-down prestige.

It hit him, then. That he was no longer just a boss. He was the de facto ruler of Kadara. Hardly an operation the size of anything he’d known back in the Milky Way — in sheer numbers, it barely came up to a mid-level gang working under Aria T’Loak — but it did control a whole planet, with a tentative hold on a dozen more. And no one had handed it out to him, either. He’d earned it, with his own blood and sweat and sacrifice. If he had his way, very few people would know that he called the shots, but it would still be him pulling the strings.

Well, at least he could count on one person not stooping to kowtow before his new authority. When he turned back, Ryder was looking at him with about as little deference as a man could without outright pointing a weapon at someone.

“Scott,” Reyes said, the name new in his mouth. Another gamble. “There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that,” Ryder said. “SAM told me about the sniper before she took the shot.”

_Shit._

_This_ was something Reyes couldn’t have predicted.

“I could’ve saved her,” Ryder continued, a large part of the distaste in his voice now directed at himself. “She made me swear I’d watch her back. And I let her die. Because you’re right. Kadara is better off without her.”

“I’m sorry. I never meant for you to have to make that decision.”

Ryder _snarled._

“Fuck you. Fuck your apologies.”

Open rage. Yes, he could work with that. If he’d ever needed to grovel, now was the time. _You’re right. I’m a lying, murdering criminal, and I don’t deserve a man like you._

But the words would not come. Instead, he couldn’t help but remember what Ryder had once said to Zia Cordier with such confidence.

_Reyes is a better man than you think._

Ryder had believed in him, the same he believed in everyone who gave him half a reason to do so. He’d given Reyes a chance to be the better man. And Reyes had thanked him by throwing that trust in his face. By using him and lying to him. Not without a cause... but a necessary evil was still evil.

 _At least I didn’t lie with him._ The dubious merit of avoiding that particular wickedness tasted bitter, now. Something selfish in Reyes wished he’d done it while he still had the chance.

“Scott,” he said.

Ryder took two steps back for his one forward, something crumbling on his face. No just angry, now. In pain, and trying hard to hide it.

“Don’t.”

Reyes stopped. “I won’t.”

With an effort that obviously humiliated him, Ryder pulled himself back together.

“Are you going to oppose the Initiative on Kadara?” he asked, his voice a little rough around the edges. His eyes remained averted, as if he could no longer even look Reyes in the face.

“Of course not. I want that outpost just as much as you do. It will have my full protection.”

Ryder nodded. “Send word to Addison, she’ll arrange the rest.”

“What are you planning to do with the recordings?”

Did Ryder realize he possessed the means to ruin him? To have him killed in twenty-four standard hours or less?

Of course he did. He had more wits in his little finger than the human flotsam collected on Kadara combined.

“I’m going to wipe them,” Ryder said. “I can’t see anything good coming out of that information falling in the wrong hands. And right now, all hands are wrong.”

And there it was. His last remaining wager, won. And the last thread that bound him to the Pathfinder severed.

“Thank you,” he said, and meant it.

“Save it. I’m not doing it for you.”

“Scott. Not everything I said was a lie.”

“I don’t give a shit.” And just like that Ryder was walking away, toward the Nomad parked on the slope.

He’s young, Keema Dohrgun would have said. Give him time, she would have said.

Keema Dohrgun was a hopeless optimist.

Reyes got on the shuttle.

“Boss,” the pilot said and switched seats to let him take the helm. They waited in silence.

Soon, a neat body bag was carried from the cave, to be flown to Kadara Port and there afforded the dignity of a proper burial. No head on a spike for the erstwhile queen of Kadara, nor being dumped in a pool of super-sulfuric acid, no matter how fitting either of those honors would have been. Even a hero fallen from grace deserved an honest grave.

The funeral was not even close to the top of Reyes’s list of things to do. They still had the Outcast headquarters left to take over. Sloane’s remaining loyalists to squash out. An administration to establish. Defenses to maintain, so the kett wouldn’t wipe them all out while they struggled to transition power. Trade deals to renegotiate, so they didn’t all starve. He wouldn’t have time to think about Ryder. Hell, he’d be lucky to find time to sleep and eat.

But first, he needed a drink or ten. Or as many as were needed until he couldn’t see straight.

After all, he’d gotten everything he’d wanted. He had a lot to celebrate.


	3. Chapter 3

Less than thirty minutes after the Tempest had settled on Aya’s orbit, Ryder was watching Director Tann’s glowing blue image on the ship’s conference deck with an uncharacteristically humorless expression.

“Let me see if I got this straight. We just arrived on Aya for the summit, and now you want me to leave and negotiate... toll rates?”

Tann clasped his hands behind his back. Technically butt, since salarians had such long arms and short torsos, but... Ryder had no particular interest in thinking about Tann’s butt. Or any part of his physique, really.

“That is exactly what I want, Pathfinder. Survival in Andromeda is a joint effort. We cannot tolerate being issued terms and conditions without a proper dialog.”

“I get that. What I don’t get is the part where I’m the most qualified person to negotiate a fiscal issue.”

The salarian sighed. His poorly hidden condescension practically oozed through the projection.

“Do not take this for the simple financial matter it appears, Ryder. These are criminal demands, made by lowlives who owe their existence to us. I want you to crush the idea that the Initiative can be extorted for easy credits. As to why I chose you — why, you helped the angara reclaim Kadara Port. They owe you a debt of gratitude. What more do you need?”

_Anything but this._

Ryder was sorely tempted to inform the salarian where exactly he could stick his assignment. But for better or for worse, Tann was and would continue to be into the unforeseen future his supervisor. Better to just get the thing over with. If he got lucky, the tolls fell under Keema Dohrgun’s jurisdiction and he’d never have to exchange a single word with... anyone else.

“When do you want this to happen?”

“Before the tolls go in place, to minimize disruptions.”

In seven standard days, then. That was how long the Kadaran administration had given everyone to digest the news that aside from the docking charges already in place, they were about to start levying tolls on ships that used Govorkam as a jump point to other systems.

To Ryder, it seemed like sound thinking. Kadara was the fastest refuel stop between the upper and left branches of the Heleus. Why shouldn’t the local powers-that-be capitalize on that? But of course Tann would balk at the ‘extortion’ and ‘unreasonable demands’. To him, the fact that the Initiative was currently spearheading the effort to oust the kett from the cluster should in and of itself have guaranteed them preferential treatment. Instead, they were to suffer the ignominy of being treated the same as everyone else. Ryder would’ve gone as far as to say that Tann was furious, even though that amounted to little more than his vocabulary acquiring a few unusually strong expressions such as ‘outrage’ and ‘that group of terrorists’.

Seven standard days. The travel alone would take them two. They would need to leave as soon as he could humanly apologize to Moshae Sjefa, Evfra and the governor.

“Why can’t we handle this by vidcon? Or email?”

“Please, Ryder. This is far too important.”

“More important than the summit?”

“They’ll just have to do with three Pathfinders instead of four.”

Well, that was a breezy way to handwave Ryder’s involvement in a series of meetings that involved everyone who was someone in the angaran leadership.

“I suppose you have an idea what kind of terms you would be willing to settle for?”

“Exemption if possible. No more than half rates if not. Anything above that is unacceptable.”

Yikes. Ryder wasn’t sure which party would prove the harder for him to handle — the Kadarans when they found out what Tann wanted, or Tann when he found out that Kadara was going to wipe its ass with his demands.

“That’s.. steep.”

“Despite the change of leadership, Kadara is still a haven for terrorists and murderers, Ryder. We will not give them more than they deserve.”

“They did come to our aid in Meridian.” Well, some of them did. Ryder pushed the memory of a certain mellifluous voice on the pilot’s comms from his head.

“One could argue that they were only doing their duty. But it is the reason I’m willing to consider paying them something, if they insist.”

Ryder knew Tann well enough to be able to tell the man was not going to budge, not before he was given some actual numbers from the Kadaran administration.

_Patience, young padawan._

“Fine.”

Tann merely blinked his enormous eyes in acknowledgement. Not even a word of thanks. Emotionally stunted bastard.

“One more thing. The matter ought to be handled with utmost discretion. Even if Keema Dohrgun’s band does not represent the best of their species, they’re still angara, and should be treated with care.”

In other words... please don’t make a mess, Ryder.

“Sure. Discretion coming right up. I’ll be in and out of Kadara like a greased otter in a water slide.”

“What — never mind.” The Director gave him a long-suffering look. “Keep me updated, Pathfinder. Tann out.”

After the salarian’s mirror image in the QEC holo had flickered away, Ryder stood for a long while at the front of the conference room, hands on the railing and eyes on the jaw-dropping vista from the Tempest’s generous viewports: the black curve of Aya’s horizon with the thin violet halo of atmosphere shimmering at its rim, and the eery, shifting glow of the Scourge beyond.

In his mind’s eye, he could see a different horizon. Rust red and green, with white clouds drifting on top.

He told himself that the way his heart rate picked up was just residual anger at being bossed around by Tann. He didn’t quite believe himself.

Beneath him, the door leading to the cargo bay opened. A hummed tune preceded the Tempest’s crisis response specialist as he proceeded to amble across the R&D hub, eyes on his omni-tool.

Oh, hell. Everyone had been looking forward to some shore leave on Aya — and no wonder, since it was the closest they’d found to a tropical paradise resort in Heleus so far. Cora was planning to buy a new kett shotgun. Peebee could spend days hunting for remnant salvage in the bazaars. And Jaal... Aya was like a second home to him. How long would it take before he started talking in real sentences again?

“Liam,” Ryder called from his vantage point.

The other man wheeled and grinned up at him, affording an excellent view at his Blasto tank, short pants and flip flops. “Oh, hey!”

“Ready for the beach, huh?”

“You know it. In case they still won’t let us, I’ll hit The Tavetaan with Drack. Sitting in the sun drinking angaran mojitos sounds pretty good to me right now. Think you can join? With all that diplomatic bull they’re planning to shove at you?”

“Yeah... about that. Just got a call from the Nexus.” Ryder grimaced. There was no nice way to say this. “Shore leave’s canceled.”

“What?”

“Tann’s orders. Sorry, buddy. We’re leaving.”

“Oh, man.” Liam deflated. “Please tell me it’s not Voeld.”

It wasn’t Voeld, but even so, Liam’s manner did not turn a lot happier when Ryder told him.

“Kadara, huh? Think you’re going to have to talk to...”

Liam’s voice trailed off in a manner that seemed a little too meaningful for Ryder’s peace of mind.

Ryder was aware that he had no one but himself to blame for the fact that everyone on board knew about... well, _that._ The memory of his star-eyed eagerness and clumsy flirting in front of the others almost made him cringe. They’d tried to warn him, for god’s sake. And he’d proceeded to hurl himself off an emotional cliff like a champ.

Well, he’d learned his lesson. And he’d always known that sooner or later, something would force him to go back. Several months had passed, how hard could it be? He’d just... go to the damned place, handle Tann’s assignment with minimal fuss and head out. Like the consummate professional everyone needed him to be.

“Could you tell the others?” he asked. “I need to make some calls planetside.”

“What should I say when they ask for a reason?”

“Tell them we’re being sent out on a delicate diplomatic mission.”

“When did we start doing delicate?” Liam asked dubiously.

Good question. Ryder was hardly the paragon of discretion Tann seemed to hope for in this case. His visit on Kadara was bound to generate a lot of buzz without trying. Tongues were going to wag. Asking for a reason, and speculating on one when it was not offered.

“Since Tann decided it, I guess.”

“Aye aye, skipper.” Liam gave him a less than enthusiastic mock salute. “A diplomatic mission with a sad lack of mojitos it is.”

 _And if I get lucky, it’ll never turn out to be more than that._ “Thanks, Liam,” Ryder said and pushed away from the railing, to go to his room and invent a last-minute excuse for missing the summit that wouldn’t end in a cross-species PR scandal.

.

.

Two days later, they touched down on Kadara Port after dark.

Despite the late hour, a crowd had gathered on the dockside platforms to watch the Tempest’s arrival. Walking down the ramp from the cargo bay to the landing pad, Ryder felt painfully aware of the dozens of pairs of eyes that followed his every move. Possibly cambots, too. _So much for discreet, I suppose._

Beyond the docks, the sky city looked the same as always. In other words, more beautiful than it had any right to be, especially at night. Floodlights and neon signs up and down the dark mountain top illuminated colorful platforms encrusted with walkways, housing, sunshades and shuttle pads. Above, the night sky glowed with several small moons and the shimmering tendrils of the nebula that wrapped around Govorkam. Beneath, hundreds of meters of sheer rock plunged down to the foothills that spread into a jagged horizon, now pitch black save where the lights of distant settlements, wind farms and factories dotted the craggy landscape. Not a place for anyone with a fear of heights, that was for damn sure.

A faint smell of rotten eggs still lingered despite the purification vault doing its job.

At the bottom of the ramp, Vetra was busy talking to a port official. Striking deals already, no doubt, the only member of the Tempest’s crew who actually looked forward to coming to the place. On sight of Ryder, she concluded her business and joined him on his way to the gangway that connected the landing pad to the main platform.

Ryder had a good enough grasp of turian body language to recognize the way Vetra’s mandibles tilted as a grin.

“Alright,” he said. “What’s so funny?”

“You,” she said and without a trace of shame, eyed his immaculate blue-on-white Andromeda Initiative uniform from head to toe. “You do like to dust off the regulations when we come here, don’t you?”

Ryder lifted his chin and placed his hands behind his back as he walked. “Maybe I just want to remind the exiles where they came from.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be on a diplomatic mission? A little humility would go a long way, Ryder.” Vetra’s tone of voice made it clear that she was just teasing him.

“Hey, I’m humble,” Ryder said. “It’s Tann who wanted me to charge in waving the Initiative flag and beating the locals to submission with it. ‘Thanks for the outpost and the help on Meridian, suckers, you think it entitles you to being treated like a sovereign entity? Think again.’”

Vetra chuckled. “Oh, so Tann’s the reason you’re all Nexused up. And here I thought you just wanted to show off a little.”

“Me? Showing off? Never,” Ryder said gravely even as the doors at the end of the gangway whizzed open on the dozens of curious individuals behind. When he sauntered forward with his tall turian companion in tow, they quickly pretended to busy themselves with work or talk or their omni-tools.

Deeper into the port, it didn’t take him long to notice that on a closer look, things _were_ different.

“The Outcasts appear to be gone,” SAM informed him, rather redundantly.

They were. And so was the fearful deference their presence had commanded. There were still guards around — angara as well as Milky Way species, all with the Collective no doubt, and heavily armed — but Ryder couldn’t spot anyone being checked for protection fee passes or beaten up in their absence. Instead of eyeing him like something that might turn out to be a rylkor turd in fancy dressing, the sentries greeted him with polite nods and murmurs of ‘Pathfinder’. And whether it was him specifically or a more general shift of attitude, he had to admit that he felt less likely to be treated to a knife in his back if he so much as breathed toward the wrong part of town.

“Things seem to have calmed down,” Vetra said as they arrived on a walkway above the central marketplace and stopped for a look.

Ryder felt inclined to agree, even though ‘calm’ was not necessarily the word he would’ve used about the nighttime bazaar. The place was bustling with the kind of life it never experienced when the sun was beating down on the port. But he knew what Vetra was talking about. Perhaps it was still a place ran by a gang, pickpockets and prostitutes and all... but something had changed. And it would’ve been lying to say that it was for the worse.

Still. It was impossible to tell how deep that change truly went. Lack of beatings in the streets and open sale of oblivion hardly prevented them from happening somewhere more private. Ryder hadn’t forgotten what he’d witnessed in the holding cells beneath the Collective base in Draullir.

“Do you need moral support? I can come with, you know,” Vetra said.

Damn these guys. Ryder hated the looks of concern and hushed voices he’d been subjected to on their way over. Even the pyjak had appeared cuddlier than normal. So, yeah, he’d had a bit of a crush on the wrong guy, once — so what? That was ancient history now. He’d gotten over it. Plenty of fish in the sea, and all that.

Not that he hadn’t been grateful for Vetra’s company on their way through the port. Because talking shop with her had kept him from focusing on how every sight, every sound, every smell had reminded him of —

“I’m good,” he said. “I know you got business to take care of. I’m just meeting Dohrgun and her cronies, anyway.”

“Don’t you find it suspicious that she agreed to meet you on such short notice?”

Ryder had to admit, he’d expected to be kept waiting. Instead, when he’d contacted Keema as soon as the Tempest reached tightbeam distance, she’d arranged a meeting so fast he couldn’t help but wonder if she’d known that he was coming. It seemed unlikely that she was privy to the kind of intel Tann’s decision to send a Pathfinder to Kadara represented, but could he count on it?

Still, Keema was a friendly face. And who knew? Maybe she did have the authority to decide on the tolls. On that optimistic note, Ryder managed what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

“Nah. Keema’s got no reason to sell me out. Hey, if we’re lucky, we could be out of here by morning. We could even make it back to Aya before the summit’s over.”

“Not too fast, I hope,” Vetra said. “I’m supposed to meet a few people first.”

“Then you should get to it. I’ll do the same.”

“Sure. Stay safe, Scott.”

After taking his leave of the turian, Ryder headed for the towering complex that had once served as the Outcast HQ and now housed Keema Dohrgun’s administration.

.

.

“I’m afraid I don’t have the authority to decide on the tolls,” Keema said as soon as they were out of earshot from the others, on an overlook that afforded them both an impossible view of the distant moonlit hills and the privacy they needed.

_Well... fuck._

Ryder fought to control his first reaction. Which was to warp back to the Tempest, take off and tell Tann that if he wanted to bargain with the Charlatan, he could damn well do so himself... even if that ended in court-martial. Or whatever the Nexus leadership would come up with to discipline an errant Pathfinder.

On some level, he’d known that things would come to this. But he’d hoped —

Yeah. He’d hoped. And he’d been an idiot for it. Of course Keema couldn’t decide on something so important, what had he been thinking?

The answer was, he hadn’t. He’d very carefully avoided thinking about it at all.

Ryder realized that he was gripping the handrail so hard that the eezo in his fingers was tingling. He made himself relax before he tore the whole balustrade off with his biotics like some volatile freak.

“Could you talk to... the Charlatan?” he asked. “Tell him what Tann wants. I’ll tell Tann.”

In the striated light coming from inside through the window blinds, Keema regarded him with an inscrutable gravity in her gaze.

“A middleman, to muddle up a matter so important? Surely you want to handle this yourself, Pathfinder.”

_Oh, hell, no._

“No,” Ryder heard himself say. “Actually, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“I — look. Me and — we didn’t part on what you might call the best terms.”

“Ah. Yes. So I’ve heard.”

Of course she had. She’d called herself a friend to... _him._

For a species so open with their feelings, the angara were sure hard sometimes for a human to interpret. Perhaps one day some brainiac would implement a translator add-on that could detect the electromagnetic impulses they employed to broadcast emotion among one another. For now, Ryder was pretty much reduced to guessing. And right now, he guessed that for some reason, Keema seemed... amused. And kind.

“Well, then you know he might not want to hear anything I have to say,” he said.

The angara gave voice to a long, meaningful hum.

“That remains to be seen. In any event, as I said, I’m not authorized to negotiate deals on this matter. You’ll need to take it up with Reyes in person.”

The name hit Ryder like a punch in the throat.

He’d avoided having to say it. Or even thinking it. So hard. And so had everyone else, apparently.

“I’m not sure I can,” he admitted.

He’d known that, too. For all his bravado, he’d known it. And perhaps admitting it so openly made him appear a bit of a wimp, but — again, Keema had called herself _his_ friend. She had to know what had been going on. Hell, she’d been there to see it, in that party thrown by Sloane. The long gazes and heavy flirting. And the angara did seem to appreciate honesty about one’s emotions above all... even when it amounted to confessing that one was a hopeless moron who couldn’t get over something that had barely started two and a half standard months ago.

“That is unfortunate,” Keema said. “But ultimately, not my problem, though I do sympathize.”

Unfortunate. Yeah. You could say that.

“How rude of me,” Keema said then, brightening. “Congratulations on Meridian, Pathfinder. I understand you were instrumental in finding and securing it.”

“Thanks.”

“He was there, too, you know,” Keema said. “Leading the exile fighter squadron. Under my orders, on paper at least.”

“Yeah. EXILE-1. I heard him on the comms, talking to the fight command.”

“He doesn’t talk about it, but he’s a good pilot. They say he shot down a lot of kett when Sloane pushed the occupation force back from Kadara.”

“Yeah.”

What was Keema getting at with this? Ryder didn’t want to think about what Reyes was and wasn’t. It only served to remind him of how little he knew about the man. This whole pilot business, too — he’d had no idea. And damn if hearing that voice out of the blue on Meridian hadn’t almost sent him driving the Nomad straight into a cliff... or whatever those rock-like formations would turn out to be. The jury was still out on that one.

“I take it you two did not speak?” Keema asked.

“No. I don’t think he even set foot on the Hyperion after the mop-up.”

He’d been so relieved. He’d all but cried himself to sleep.

“He did return ahead of the others,” Keema said. “I must admit, I encouraged him to do so. I understand that as a soldier and a human, Reyes wanted to fight, but... he was needed here.”

“So he does run things on Kadara.”

“Well, my office is not entirely without a say-so. We handle the day-to-day affairs of the port. He... oversees. I’d go as far as to say that he advises, but — I’m aware that only holds true as long as we keep making decisions he agrees with. And once you leave the port... a lot happens on Kadara that I hear only whispers about.”

Well, that didn’t sound ominous at all.

“Does he still live in Tartarus?”

“Not as openly as before. It’s the word on the street now that he’s one of the Charlatan’s top representatives, in charge of groundside operations under and around the port proper. That places him in too much danger to have the kind of freedom he’s used to. Not all of Kadara is under Collective rule.” Keema gave Ryder another discerning, unreadable look. “But enough about him. How are you, Pathfinder? Still busy saving the Nexus from itself?”

They talked about other matters.

After a while, Keema checked her omni-tool. The things were gaining popularity among the angara who lived in contact with Milky Way colonists.

“I’m afraid our time is at an end. Who knew that pretending to govern things would be so time consuming?” She lowered her left hand and offered her right for an angaran handshake. “If you wish, you can stay here to make the call. This place is free of surveillance.”

“Thanks.”

Keema turned to go. But before opening the door that would take her in, she turned to look back at Ryder, a cryptic angaran smile on her lips.

“He was very impressed, you know,” she said. “With what you achieved on Meridian.”

“How do you—?”

“Oh, I know.” She nodded. _“Isharay,_ Pathfinder.”

Alone again, Ryder leaned his elbows on the railing and lowered his head into his hands.

“Fuck,” he said, then kept repeating it for emphasis.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck...!”_

 _Over it, my ass._ He’d be over it when Tann sucked it up and ceded directorship to Kesh. In other words, when hell froze over.

It wasn’t even like he hadn’t known it, on some level. Not when he was still jacking off to thoughts of a certain kiss in the sunset... and what might have happened after, had the other party not left to take care of his fucking business contacts. Which, come to think, might have been just another lie. For all he knew, the whole thing had been nothing but one more attempt to manipulate him. Maybe Reyes had never even meant to —

Familiar old anger washed over Ryder, just as pointless and painful as his longing.

Trying to ignore personal shit until it went away, huh? Way to go. Just like his dad. Bottle, cork — and look how well that had ended. He’d all but embarrassed himself in front of a very important person just because he hadn’t been smart or brave enough to handle his dirty emotional laundry. He should have done... something. Talked to Lexi, perhaps. Now the things left unsaid and undealt with had a weight that made him reel.

_Fuck. Fuck —_

“Scott?” SAM piped up, almost meekly.

Ryder cleared his throat and lowered his hands from his face.

“Yeah, SAM?”

“Governor Dohrgun was telling the truth. I detect no traces of listening devices in the immediate vicinity.”

“Thanks.” He’d had no reason to suspect that Keema was lying. Then again... her loyalty was to Reyes, not to him. In the end, she could only be trusted to the extent one was willing to trust _him._

Which wasn’t all that far, even if Ryder set his personal feelings aside. Outpost Ditaeon seemed to be doing well, but what did he know? He wouldn’t have put it past Reyes to have infiltrated the place with his informers and lackeys already. Eventually, it might well end up being more his than the Initiative’s, like everything else in Govorkam.

What was it like, to own a whole star system...?

After a pause, SAM spoke again.

“Scott, may I ask you something that might help me to understand the situation?”

“Go ahead, SAM.”

“Are you hesitating to contact Mr. Vidal because of his dishonesty or because of your past romantic affiliation with him?”

Ryder kept silent for a long moment, just watching the lights that glittered far below in the black landscape, either artificial or reflections of moonlight from the many small lakes that peppered the valleys between the craggy hills.

“Scott?”

“Both,” Ryder said. “That would be both, SAM.”

“I see. I’ve noticed that you’ve shown no romantic interest in anyone else since.”

“I’ve been kind of busy, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Yes, but before meeting Mr. Vidal, you often engaged in playful language with sexual undertones, even if it never progressed to actual intercourse.”

“It’s called flirting, SAM, and you know it.”

“Yes, Scott. You have ceased this flirting behavior after your collaboration with Mr. Vidal ended in disagreement.”

 _Well, hit me with a pyjak and call me monkey._ It was true, wasn’t it? Before, he’d flirted with — well, everyone, really. And then Kadara had happened, and he’d just... stopped, without paying it a single thought. No wonder they all acted like there was something wrong with him. With the stress of doing his job — first Elaaden and the krogan colony, then finding the missing arks, and finally the hunt for Meridian — he’d chalked it down to them worrying over his wellbeing, but apparently, he hadn’t been half as good at keeping everything under the lid as he’d hoped.

“What’re you getting at, SAM?”

“Is it possible that your romantic feelings for Mr. Vidal have never ceased?”

Another silence.

“Yeah. It’s possible.”

“I see. Thank you for telling me.”

“Any words of advice?”

“Unfortunately, my experiences on the subject are restricted to your father’s attachment to your mother and 15,786 works of fiction with romantic subplots. I believe none of them represent solid real-life references.”

“Yeah, Dad was not the best at relationships.”

“However, I did notice that when your father postponed talking to your mother about something that could not be avoided, he always ended up regretting it. Perhaps you should call Mr. Vidal, Scott.”

Ryder refrained from pointing out that his father’s difficulties at communicating with his mother were hardly on a par with his reluctance to contact a shady crime boss who had manipulated him, almost seduced him and used him like a pile driver to get rid of his enemies.

“I don’t know, SAM. It’s getting kinda late.”

“Mr. Vidal did not strike me as the type to retire early.”

Damned AI. Always right, even when it sort of wasn’t.

“Would you like me to make the call, Scott?”

Well. No time like the present, huh? He would’ve preferred to do it with some whiskey softening the impact, but... if he was going to negotiate with the man who now ruled Kadara, he needed to keep his wits about him. He took a deep breath and pushed away from the railing.

He’d faced down the Archon. He could do this, dammit.

“Go ahead, SAM,” he said.


	4. Chapter 4

_“Please hold,”_ said the soothing synthetic voice of a VI from Ryder’s comm before inoffensive muzak signaled that he’d been placed on the waiting list for the Charlatan’s no doubt priceless time.

Ryder cursed and started pacing up and down the overlook.

He tried not to read too much into being put on hold. It happened. Even to a Pathfinder. And it wasn’t like he wanted to speak to Reyes, either, so — if the man was trying to play hard to get, he was welcome to it. Ryder was a busy, important person, too. He had places to be. People to meet. And a bottle of moonshine in Kralla’s to destroy, in case the jerk couldn’t even be bothered to —

When the comm connected, Ryder stopped pacing. And breathing.

 _“Ryder,”_ said a familiar warm, perfectly controlled baritone in his ear. _“Forgive me. I was in the middle of something. What can I do for you?”_

Ryder winced. _Shit, shit —_ He closed the mic and groaned.

_I can’t. I can’t do this._

_“Ryder?”_ the man at the other end inquired into the stretching silence, politely concerned.

 _What’s wrong with you? He’s just some conniving asshole who doesn’t deserve to be_ _sniveled_ _over!_ With what seemed like a greater effort of willpower than giving his first speech to the whole of the Nexus had required, Ryder pulled himself together and turned the mic back on.

“Sorry,” he said. It didn’t come out as cool and collected as one might have hoped, but it was still a lot better than being petrified.

_“There you are.”_

That... didn’t sound like something someone reluctant to talk to him would say. Or the way he would say it. The knowledge that he couldn’t trust anything that came out of Reyes’s mouth did little to stop the traitorous butterflies in Ryder’s stomach.

The thick accent betrayed that Reyes was speaking English. The translator would have smoothed out the most obvious non-native quirks from his speech, but as usual, he wasn’t about to leave anything as important as his words to the whims of an algorithm.

“Tann sent me,” Ryder said. “We need to talk about the tolls.”

 _“_ _The tolls_ _? But I told Keema —”_ Silence fell for a moment. When Reyes spoke again, his tone had turned more businesslike. _“_ _Of course._ _Where are you?”_

“The port. Keema’s headquarters.”

Ryder could hear people yelling in the background through the link. Something his translator failed to pick up. Spanish? And a strange high-pitched sound, like a whine. Of pain...? Where was the man taking his call from? A torture chamber?

 _“_ _I’m_ _sending_ _a shuttle_ _to pick you up,”_ Reyes said. _“It’ll be at Keema’s private landing pad in fifteen.”_

A shuttle. It wasn’t even a question.

Come, boy. Roll over. Fetch some Outcasts!

“No, just give me the navpoint and I’ll come by myself. I need to gear up if I’m going outside the port. I don’t even have a pistol on me right now.” He didn’t need a pistol to defend himself, or kinetic barriers — but no one could tell that he was a biotic just by looking. Better to carry a deterrent. Also, putting on a hardsuit and bringing friends when going to meet a ruthless gang lord was probably just plain sound thinking.

_“Ryder. No one will lay a finger on you while you’re on Kadara. Not if I can help it.”_

That deep tone of voice... the deliberate pacing. Was Reyes trying to imply that he would —

_Oh my fucking god._

“Fine,” Ryder gritted out. “Send the shuttle.”

_“It’s on its way.”_

And then the link went dead.

Ryder blinked, amazed to find himself still standing in the same spot, looking at the same nighttime landscape.

What the hell had just happened? The man he’d talked to... that was not the smooth-talking smuggler he’d once worked with. Or even the cold-blooded killer he’d met in the cave. This was someone else. Someone used to being in charge and obeyed.

But was it the real Reyes? Or just another mask? He had no idea. All he knew was that he’d almost sprung an embarrassing Pavlovian reaction, just because Reyes had said his name in his ear and suggested with nothing more than a turn of voice that he’d off anyone who so much as —

Ryder resisted an urge to find the closest hard surface and bang his head against it.

Why? Why couldn’t he go for someone sane? Like Gil. Or Harry Carlyle. He’d had a bit of a crush on Dr. Carlyle back in the Milky Way. The good doctor was of course far too upright a citizen to have ever treated his old friend’s son with anything but utter professionalism, but here, in another galaxy, with Ryder no longer fifteen... he was pretty sure he could’ve brought Harry Carlyle around.

But no. It had to be the fucking Charlatan. Because apparently his preferred brand of Prince Charming came with an allergy to the law and basic fucking decency. To keep from flinging himself off the mountain without a jetpack on, Ryder went back inside and asked the first person he saw for directions to the shuttle pad.

It wasn’t far. And it was thankfully quiet. He settled to wait with his back to the wall, a single sad lamp above the door illuminating the spot where he stood.

“Scott,” came his trusty AI companion’s voice after a while, interrupting the bout of self-pity he was indulging in. “I’m aware I encouraged you to contact Mr. Vidal, but is it wise to go meet him alone?”

“Hey, I’m not alone. I got you, SAM.”

“Of course. But shouldn’t we inform your crew of your intentions?”

And have them start calling him to tell him that he was making a huge mistake? No, thanks. He already knew that.

“Just be ready to contact them if things go south.”

He heard the shuttle before he saw it rising from below and settling to hover next to the pad. A simple Kodiak with black and white customization. Inside, the dark cockpit was lit only by the dim orange glow of the shuttle’s haptic controls.

“Pathfinder,” a Collective pilot greeted him before he strapped himself in, and they headed out into the night.

Around the mountain, then down and south — or so the map on Ryder’s omni-tool told him. The pilot flew dark, well below usual cruising altitudes, low enough to shield them from long-range scanners between rocky outcrops. It afforded a breathtaking view over the moonlit landscape with its shimmering pools and swift changes of altitude, but Ryder was in no mood to admire the scenery.

What was he doing? SAM was right. He should’ve asked for backup. Or at least for a weapon of some sort from Keema’s guards. Adrenaline junkie or no, Ryder wasn’t usually one to take stupid risks without good reason. Just like before, it seemed that dealing with Reyes sent his common sense flying out of the window.

Well, now it was too late to do anything but wait... and try not to chew his fingernails to the quick while at it.

After what felt like a small eternity rather than fifteen minutes, the shuttle emerged from a mountain pass over a lake that took up most of a wide valley. At the other end, sheltered by a ridge with windmills looming black against the horizon, floodlights outlined the shape of a terraced plantation, much greener than anything that usually existed in this part of Kadara. Closer, Ryder could see greenhouses and storage rooms, sprinklers and gardening robots, a water filtering plant — everything needed to keep crops thriving in a harsh environment.

Up the hill, the pilot brought them down on a small LZ next to a well-lit two-storied building that overlooked the terraced fields. After powering down the engine, she stood up and opened the door. Outside, heat radiating from the ground and humidity from the sprinklers hit Ryder in the face like a hot breath.

The smell of things growing was overwhelming. Moist soil, and fertilizer, and leafy plants — almost like Cora’s little garden in the Tempest’s bio lab, except a few hundred thousand times the size. Cora’s hardy tank-farmed ferns and legumes weren’t guarded by armed thugs, either, like the ones Ryder could see making their rounds at the perimeter. Whatever the Collective was growing here, it was valuable.

“SAM,” he murmured. “What’s this?”

“A farm. I’m unable to identify crops without scanning.”

“Please follow me, Pathfinder,” the pilot said and started toward the house.

They climbed a flight of stairs to a raised platform that skirted the building. At the top, the pilot gestured for Ryder to continue around the corner alone. Ryder stopped to straighten his uniform.

 _Alright, Scott. Remember to breathe. And whatever happens... do_ not _let yourself be charmed. You can’t trust anything he says._

With the memory of how he’d nearly panicked over a short comm call still far too recent in his mind, he started walking again.

.

.

A simple outlook had been arranged on the platform facing the lake. Two chairs, a small table; a crate next to the handrail with binoculars on top. In front of them, a lean man in dark clothes was squatting on one knee with his back to Ryder.

Closer, Ryder’s translator picked up the Spanish.

“— take him in and don’t let that _hijo de puta_ warn anyone. We don’t need more complications. If the —”

“Boss,” a woman’s voice warned.

Ryder’s head whipped toward it. There, by the wall — Adik, the smileless black woman he’d once taken for a henchman but now knew for a bodyguard. She was heavily armed and armored as always, with an assault rifle at her back and a pistol on her thigh. If Ryder’s SAM-enhanced vision was anything to go by, the look she gave him bordered on openly hostile. Then again, he was yet to see her treat anyone except her employer without suspicion, so perhaps it was better not to take her distrust too personally.

A yapping sound broke out from nearby.

The next thing Ryder saw was an animal of some kind pounding toward him on four gangly legs across the platform. He stopped and stood his ground as the rather overly enthusiastic creature performed a short excited dance in front of him before flopping itself belly up at his feet.

_What the hell?_

He had to be seeing things. Though surely SAM would have warned him if he’d been drugged on his way. It simply couldn’t be what it seemed: a dog with a white coat and big pointy ears. Space born and raised, Ryder didn’t know enough about dogs to name its breed, but he could tell that it wasn’t very old. A young puppy, really.

“I’ll call you back,” said the Charlatan.

Ryder looked up to where the master of the house now stood watching him.

Gone was the nondescript brown-gray flight suit that had been the trademark of Reyes’ smuggler persona. Instead, he was wearing dark gray pants tucked into black boots and a short black jacket over a white shirt, cut well enough to look a little posh in a world where luxury was still hard to come by. Two Sidewinders hung on his hips from a gun belt, a few gold embellishments away from something straight out of ‘The Pirates of the Terminus’.

Reyes. The Charlatan. Never before had one completely meshed with the other in Ryder’s mind. The man he’d kissed in the sunset — charismatic, self-centered and oh so much more dangerous than he’d wanted to let on. And the stranger who stood before him now, with power over everything he could see. Growing up with living legends had a way of inoculating one against illusions about figures of authority, but Ryder had to admit that where Reyes the smuggler had been all devil-may-care charm, Reyes the Charlatan looked... pretty damned intimidating. The perpetual crooked smile on him was the same, but the pretense of cheerful selfishness was gone. Something far more complex had taken its place.

Hell. What a difference two months could make.

Ryder’s tongue had glued itself to the roof of his mouth. The sweat trickling down his spine had little to do with the muggy microclimate. It didn’t help that a pair of hazel eyes was making its way down his blue-on-whites to his feet.

“She likes you,” Reyes said.

_Huh?_

Ryder looked down.

Frustrated at his lackluster response, the animal was now just... sitting there, wagging its tail, head cocked to the side and huge ears perked toward him.

“You. Have a dog,” he managed.

“Several, in fact,” Reyes said.

Ryder had thought he’d come prepared for everything. Words sweet or professional. Lies, pleas and threats. He’d come prepared for goddamn poetry. Or being kidnapped at gunpoint. But not _this._

“Screw you, Vidal,” he choked out as he went to his knees to pet the damn thing. “I knew you don’t play fair, but this is fucking ridiculous...!”

The cursed man laughed. A genuine, heartfelt laugh that warmed every dumb cell in Ryder’s body.

“How the hell...?”

“Test tube,” said that rich, amused voice that still felt like a caress down his spine. “We have biological samples of all kinds of Milky Way animals.”

“Yeah, but a dog — a fucking _dog,_ Vidal! In Andromeda! You’re a madman.”

“I grew up with dogs. I missed them.”

Right. One of the few things Ryder knew about Reyes for certain was that he came from Earth. Many people on Earth had dogs. The compound where Ryder and his twin sister had spent a year training with their dad’s retired N7 buddies had had one, too. A huge, mean looking thing, it had somehow also been the kindest, gentlest creature Ryder had ever known.

The puppy was stronger than it appeared. And very wriggly. Ryder couldn’t bring himself to care about the reddish paw prints his uniform acquired.

“Does it have a name?”

_“Tequila.”_

“You named your dog after a drink?!”

“Why not? Two of the things I enjoy most combined. She’s not mine, to be precise. She’s supposed to stay here and guard the ranch. Although at the rate things are going, she’s more likely to lick an intruder to death than scare them off.”

As if to prove the words, the dog finally managed to squirm its way out of Ryder’s grip and lick him in the face. He laughed in surprise.

“I’m sorry. She’s not very well behaved,” Reyes said.

Ryder looked up, still grinning.

Across the platform, Reyes was watching them with what looked like fondness. The dashing bandit with the golden fucking heart. Ryder’s grin faltered.

_Get your shit together, dumbass. He’s pulling you to his pace. And you’re letting it happen._

He looked around.

“What is this place?”

“A lab farm.”

“A lab farm for what?”

“Earth crops.”

“Such as?”

“Coffee. Corn. Vegetables. Also, tobacco. Why, did you think we’re growing cocaine?”

That was, in fact, exactly what Ryder had been thinking. Well, not necessarily cocaine, but something just as suspicious.

“We also grow local plants for research,” Reyes continued. “Several species of common fungi on Kadara have medicinal properties.”

Ryder realized that he’d now spent such a long time mooning over the dog that it was becoming embarrassing. Reluctantly, he reclaimed his hands and got up. Dissatisfied at the turn of events, the puppy started making noise and jumping against his legs to regain his attention. Reyes sighed and pressed some buttons on his omni-tool.

In a moment, a door opened to let out a man in an apron. He bowed, not deep enough to make it seem like groveling, just a simple show of respect.

“Boss?”

“Martínez,” Reyes said. “The dog?”

“Yes, boss.” With a curious look thrown in Ryder’s direction, Martínez collected the animal and took it inside.

Ryder realized that if the dog’s presence had been meant to set him at ease, it had worked. Only with it gone did his nerves truly pick up on who exactly he was sharing his immediate surroundings with. Not alone, not with Adik standing there in the shadows, but definitely not in public either.

Still. He wasn’t freaking out. That was... something.

“Please,” Reyes said and gestured at the table with two chairs arranged around it facing the lake.

Every instinct Ryder possessed warned him against getting closer, but insisting that he preferred to conduct their business standing would probably have come across as a little bizarre. He walked over and sat down, feeling out of place in his prim (if no longer pristine) uniform, without so much as a peashooter to brandish if something went wrong.

His host, on the other hand, looked utterly at home as he settled in the other chair, booted right leg coming up on left knee. From a flat metal case on the table, he picked out a cigarette, tapped it against the case and brought it to his mouth, to be lit with a butane lighter from his pocket.

Did the man ever just... do something? Without turning it into a performance? Ryder made himself look away, beyond the dark, terraced plantation and its softly chattering sprinklers, to where two of Kadara’s five moons hung in the shimmering sky over the mountain-locked lake. Their long reflections glinted on the black water that was still in the process of being purified by the remnant vault.

It was a beautiful setting. Romantic enough for a candlelit dinner. Well, maybe in some parallel universe. One where one of them wasn’t a scheming, lying prick.

“Can I offer you a drink?” Reyes asked.

Ryder saw glasses on the table, and a bottle that might’ve contained anything. A soft scent drifted over from the cigarette. It wasn’t tobacco. Perhaps it was that stuff the angara smoked.

“Let’s just get on with it.”

“Very well.” Reyes sounded so perfectly on point that it was almost infuriating. “You said Tann sent you here to negotiate the tolls?”

“Yeah.”

“And what does Tann want?”

“Exemption.”

Reyes chuckled. “Let me guess. He thinks the Initiative deserves it, after everything it’s done.”

“Something like that.”

“You can tell Tann that we’ll lift all of our requirements the day he turns himself in to be tried for his betrayal in New Tuchanka.”

Well... shit. That wasn’t going to go over well.

“Don’t get me wrong, Ryder. I’m grateful for all that you’ve accomplished. But the Nexus... and what Tann did to the exiles... he can take a walk out the closest airlock without a helmet on, for all I care.”

Ryder’s head was starting to ache. He rubbed at his forehead and tried to will his muddled brain to work. It would’ve been easier if Reyes hadn’t been so... well... _there,_ confusing him with all of these useless emotions.

He decided to go with what his gut was telling him.

“You don’t care what Tann did,” he said.

“I don’t?”

“No. I mean, sure, you think it’s hilarious to give him the finger, but not because of what he did to the exiles or the krogan or whatever. You didn’t leave the Nexus to protest Tann’s mistakes, you left because the Initiative was holding you back. You’re a crook and all you care about is the bottom line. Getting to one-up the Initiative while you milk a profit out of sitting on a gate world is just a bonus. So don’t try to take the moral high ground. You’re not cut out for it.”

After what felt like a stunned silence, Reyes burst out laughing.

“Why, Ryder. You’ve really changed your opinion about me, haven’t you?”

Ryder had forgotten how often Reyes laughed, and how freely. Even now, he sounded nothing like a ruthless machiavellian prince. Just confident and interested and sympathetic. Self-possessed, sure — but in a way that would attract people to him rather than intimidate them. No wonder it was so easy to be fooled into believing him.

“Yeah, well,” Ryder muttered. “Sorry if I no longer think that the sun shines out of your ass.”

“I’m not,” Reyes said with a rueful sort of acceptance. “It saddens me that your current opinion of me is so unflattering and overly simplistic. But all things considered, I prefer that you’re no longer lying to yourself about me. Perhaps we now have a chance of understanding each other.”

Ryder looked over, surprised at what sounded unexpectedly like candor.

A pair of warm hazel-brown eyes met his own through cigarette smoke. The melancholy smile on Reyes seemed to have all the world’s self-deprecating amusement in it.

 _I didn’t lie to myself about who you were, you did!_ But Ryder swallowed the objection. No matter how much he wanted to think otherwise, Reyes was right. How many times had he insisted on taking something the man had said for an attempt to downplay embarrassing altruistic tendencies? Seeing what he’d wanted, instead of the truth?

Not that he was about to admit it, of course. He scowled at the other man.

“How about we draw the line at not shooting each other?”

“A truce?” Reyes fiddled with the cigarette in his fingers. His tone grew almost teasing. “Yes, I believe I can live with that. I’m sure it’s more than a crook like me deserves.”

The part of Ryder that wanted to wipe the smug smile off Reyes’s face lost to the part that was absolutely melting from how the man was looking at him. Blushing like a moron under his scowl, he turned away, but not before his mind had cataloged a few details he’d until now been too flustered to notice, like how Reyes’ skin had tanned an even deeper golden brown from spending less time holed up in Tartarus. Or how the artificial light turned his eyes nearly green. Or the roguish strand of black hair that had escaped from the rest to curl on his forehead.

Better to keep his eyes on the lake. The lake didn’t impede his ability to cogitate.

“Why did Tann send you instead of some number-crunching bureaucrat?” Reyes asked. He sounded genuinely curious.

Ryder shifted in his chair. “Well, he’s under the impression that I helped the angara retake Kadara. I guess he was hoping Keema would feel lenient toward me.”

“And here you are. The champion Tann hoped for, but sure as hell doesn’t deserve.”

What was that supposed to mean?

“I don’t give a flying fuck what Tann thinks. But I do care about the Initiative not getting short-changed.”

“I see. And what are you prepared to do to prevent that?”

_Right._

“I guess I could threaten to tell everyone who you are.”

“Ryder, I’m shocked. Blackmailed by the hero of Meridian? What would people say?”

Swift and unconditional capitulation had seemed a lot to hope for, but still, the grin Ryder heard in Reyes’s voice was a little too much to bear.

“You don’t think I would?”

“No, as a matter of fact I don’t. Unlike me, you’re far too good for that sort of thing.”

On a normal day, Ryder would have taken the backchat as a challenge rather than insult. This... wasn’t a normal day.

“You don’t know me,” he growled. “So keep your damn jokes about my morals to yourself.”

“I — of course. Forgive me.”

The apology sounded... almost genuine. And far more civil than Ryder’s reaction had deserved.

It galled him to the bone to admit it, but again, Reyes was right. He didn’t have it in him to blackmail anyone. Least of all anyone who might well end up dead in case he had to carry out his threat. Besides, revealing Reyes as the Charlatan would endanger the outpost. Ryder couldn’t risk undermining the Initiative’s still tentative foothold on Kadara.

“No, I... you’re right. I’m not a blackmailer.”

“Thank you.” He could still hear that damned smile in Reyes’s voice. He was beginning to suspect that it had absolutely nothing to do with the man’s real state of mind.

“For what?”

“For keeping my secrets. Since leaving the Nexus, my life has depended on them.” Reyes sighed. “Ryder, I know you have no reason to believe me, but I meant it when I said that Tann doesn’t deserve you.”

Ryder stared over the lake, his throat suddenly too tight to speak.

Sara always teased him about being the emotional one. And maybe he was. Maybe he did care too much. But... he’d fallen in love with this asshole, for fuck’s sake. How was he supposed to do this? To bargain with the man who had broken his heart?

Something awful was about to happen. He was going to cry. He was going to stammer out something humiliating about how much he’d been hurt and how awful he still felt.

He shouldn’t have come. He should have refused, court-martial or no.

“Yeah,” he said. It came out rough. “I guess I’m a real keeper, huh?”

Down the terraced slope, the sprinklers wound to a stop, leaving behind a deeper than before silence.

After a moment, Reyes leaned forward to put out his cigarette in an ashtray. When he spoke, it sounded like he was choosing his words very carefully.

“Ryder. I recognize this is not the time to speak of... certain matters. But I will risk telling you this. Of the things I’ve said to you, very few have in fact been lies.”

Ryder snorted. “Go to hell.”

“I’m not saying it to make excuses. I have held things back from you. I’ve allowed you to operate under false assumptions. I had my reasons, but they don’t change what I did. However, I did try to tell you the truth when I could.”

“Yeah, for all of three times or so. I bet you felt real broken about it.”

“What would it take to convince you that I don’t want any more lies between us?”

Ryder gritted his teeth. The urge to say something unforgivable and walk away was growing stronger by the minute.

But he couldn’t. No matter how much he needed to get the hell out and stop getting lacerated by his feelings. This wasn’t a social call, and he wasn’t free to do as he wished. Never would be, not as long as people looked up to him as their Pathfinder.

“Well, you could start by lowering the fucking tolls,” he said.

The silence stretched again. Perhaps Reyes was considering whether to tell him that the offer about Tann having to turn himself in for some good old krogan justice was the final one. And what a glorious slap in the face that would be. Tann would go totally ballistic... in his bloodless politician’s way. Ryder had to admit, he almost wanted to see it.

“Very well,” Reyes said at last. “Initiative ships will be charged one third less for passage for two years, after which the deal will be renegotiated.”

_Huh._

_Really?_

One third. That was — good. That was something he could give to Tann. He hadn’t expected anything half so generous.

Was Reyes really doing this just to convince Ryder of his honesty? If he was — if he actually was willing to go that far — was it possible that Ryder was mistaken about him, just a —

“On one condition,” Reyes said.

_— Scott, you fucking moron._

Of course there was a condition. Something humiliating Tann would never agree to. Something meant to show just how little the exiles thought of the Initiative.

“Right,” Ryder said, irritation overcoming some of his anxiety. “I’ve got to warn you though, I don’t in fact have the go-ahead to broker deals for the Nexus. Whatever you want, it has to go through Tann.”

“Tann? Tann has nothing that interests me. I want something from you, Ryder.”

And just like that, Ryder’s nervousness was back with a vengeance.

“Uhh. From me...?”

“Yes.” Reyes’s voice grew more intimate. “Between you and me, there’s some unfinished business I want to take care of.”

Ryder flushed cold. And then hot all over.

And there it was again. The memory of the kiss.

He wasn’t the most experienced person around, but he’d kissed a handful of guys (and even a couple girls, just to be sure) — and no one, _no one_ had ever kissed him like Reyes above the rooftops after Sloane Kelly’s party. It wasn’t just the blatant promise of sex in it that had wrecked him so bad. He could have gotten sex from a lot of guys. It was the connection he’d felt — something real that ran deeper than the half-truths and feints between them. And even if it had turned out to be another lie... even if it had ended badly... he almost wished he’d pushed for more. Because if just kissing Reyes could make him feel that way... what would more be like?

“Unfinished business?” he managed.

Reyes laughed, softer than before. “Why, Ryder. Don’t tell me that comes as a surprise, after all we’ve been through.”

_Holy shit. He wouldn’t dare. I thought he was just pretending that he wanted—!_

_What the fuck should I do? How do I say no to the goddamn Charlatan?_

_I am going to say no. Right...?_

“So, what is it?” Ryder asked, and held his breath.

.

.

Five minutes later, he was sitting in the shuttle on his way back to the port, still trying to process what had just happened.

Vetra picked up his call on the fourth chime.

 _“Hey, Ryder,”_ she said. The cavernous echo to her words told that she’d left the port for the slums. Whatever she was doing down there, it was probably dangerous, borderline illegal and involved credits of questionable origin. _“Your meeting with Dohrgun all done?”_

“Yeah, it’s done. Listen, uh... I need to find something here on Kadara. But I’ve got no clue where to begin.”

_“Okay, shoot. What is it?”_

“You remember Dr. Nakamoto’s formula? Well, someone’s put it back together. They’re selling oblivion on the streets again. I need to put a stop to it, but no one knows where it’s coming from. Any chance you might know where to start looking...?”


	5. Chapter 5

It took a whole day out of the remaining five and all of Vetra’s considerable street smarts to track down someone who could be convinced to relinquish the name of an oblivion dealer in the slums. A call to Dr. Nakamoto later, the name came with identifying information attached. _Oh, him._ _Came in with a nasty cut across the back of his hand yesterday._ _Said a knife slipped while cooking. Hangs out in Tartarus. A skinny fellow with blue_ _hair_ _._

“So. Lemme know if you’ve heard this one,” Drack rumbled as his shadow fell across a table that featured a man with a shock of cerulean hair and a bandaged left hand. “A krogan, a turian and a Pathfinder walk into a bar, looking for a fight. But there’s only one guy to beat up. So they share.”

“And?” Vetra asked mildly from behind the krogan’s back.

“That’s it. Happy ending.” Drack’s mean low laugh bared a row of bone-crushing teeth.

“Urgh. Krogan humor’s the worst.”

“W-what do you people want?” the blue-haired man asked.

Drack planted his knuckles on the table and leaned over, dwarfing the guy.

“I,” he said, “want to squash something. The kid here,” he jerked his thumb in Ryder’s direction, “wants to find where you get your merchandise. Please feel free not to tell him at once. I’m bored, and this joint needs redecorating.”

Two minutes later, they had a navpoint and a date.

.

.

Whoever was behind the recent influx of oblivion back into Kadara, they’d learned from the Outcasts’ mistakes and weren’t leaving tracks to follow. The Collective was still a relatively small operation, stretched thin to manage everything it now controlled. Solving the drug problem would have required the concentrated effort of more operatives than they could currently dedicate to a minor issue.

The thing was, left unchecked, the issue would soon become something more than minor. Drug money could and would attract a rival gang around itself. Resources or no, the Collective needed to act before that happened.

Which was where Ryder now came in.

The mission itself was simple. Find the drug labs. Stop them, wipe all misplaced backups of Nakamoto’s formula and deal with the culprits. Two days in, Ryder still had a rather vague idea how it was going to happen. Then again, had it been easy, the Collective would already have handled the situation themselves.

The navpoint Ryder and his crew now possessed was for nothing as convenient as a secret lab or even the home address of someone higher on the ladder of evil. It was for a drop-off where the dealer picked up his goods — literally, a hole in the wall in the worst part of the slums. It took a mind-numbing twenty hour stakeout and some clever cloak-and-dagger work from Peebee, but eventually, they had a tracking device planted on a courier. And then they just waited. Again.

None of the locations the courier visited over the next couple of days turned out to be particularly interesting. A barbershop, a kabob stand; Kralla’s and a place that had to be the guy’s home address, where the signal stayed for a solid nine to ten hours at a time. The longer Ryder lingered in the slums, the more he noticed that things down there had changed a lot more than in the port. The Collective’s small soup kitchen had become an effort to provide food and shelter for everyone in need. Instead of a shipping container, Dr. Nakamoto now worked out of a clean clinic staffed with five other people, one of them an angaran doctor. The baryte mining operation was gaining momentum, promising jobs and credits.

Things were looking up for the exiles, but Ryder’s appreciation of it was soured by the awareness of who exactly was behind the change. It didn’t take long before he headed out to the outpost, where as usual a lot of issues had piled up for him to fix. It was the only place on Kadara where he couldn’t see the Charlatan’s influence in everything he laid his eyes on.

Then, one day before Tann’s deadline, SAM woke him up to tell him that the courier had left the port and was moving in a southeasterly direction at a velocity that suggested a shuttle.

“Still think you shoulda let me have a go at that guy,” Drack groused later as Ryder put the Nomad in gear down the sunny shrub-covered valley, away from the cluster of prefab modules that made up the outpost. “Wouldn’t’ve had to wait for two damn days.”

“Sure,” Vetra said. “And set everyone on high alert because a courier went off radar. We already took a chance by talking to the dealer, and you know it.”

Said dealer was now enjoying a prolonged, omni-tool-less vacation in the same cell where Vehn Terev had once spent a few weeks during Sloane Kelly’s reign.

“Whatever,” Drack grunted. “As long as I get to shoot at someone.”

Ryder shook his head. “You need to work on this wise old man act of yours, Drack. At your age, you should have it down already.”

“Wise old man? Hell, kid, all I want is to bang a few more heads together before I die.”

“Hey, no talk of dying this early,” Vetra groaned. “My morning tisane hasn’t reached my brain yet. Also, you know I talk to that surgeon who’s installing the new parts I got you, right? She said you’re going to outlive us all.”

“That’s breaking doctor-patient confidentiality,” Drack complained. “And who says I’m kicking the bucket in my bed when my last spare ticker decides to give out? I find that remark insulting! Step on it, Ryder! You’re driving like a damned salarian kindergarten teacher!”

“No, I just had breakfast, do _not_ encourage him to — spirits! I hate you both,” Vetra moaned and held on as Ryder grinned and boosted the Nomad up a steep hill toward a digestion-unfriendly shortcut through the mountains.

.

.

At the end of a two-hour ride, in the unnamed wasteland far beyond Draullir, an innocent enough looking cavern waited with a few shuttles and a host of ex-Outcast guards inside. Further in, they found not a health spa reluctant to shell out the Collective’s steep business cut, but an actual honest-to-god drug factory full of shiny equipment stolen from the Nexus. At the sight of Ryder and his squad, the whitecoats hard at work at the processing line threw up their hands without a word.

The guards had put up a decent fight, but these people weren’t military. Just schmucks trying to make a credit in order to live another day. Ryder neither felt the need nor had the means to detain them. All he needed were the ringleaders — or the ringleader, as it turned out. No one had to so much as point her out to him, thanks to his excellent memory of faces.

It would’ve been immensely satisfying to torch the place, but the hardware it contained was too valuable. After scrubbing the terminals, evacuating the workers and reprogramming the locks in expectation of an Initiative recovery team, they walked out with a trussed-up ‘Dr.’ Farenth struggling and dealing obscenities from under Drack’s arm.

“You’re going to regret this!”

“I already am,” Ryder said. “I didn’t need to take you alive, but here we are. I can still change that, you know.”

He wasn’t about to kill a biochemist whose weapon of choice consisted of dirty words, but neither was he above scaring her a little, to save himself from ear damage before Drack could toss her in the Nomad.

“Go wait inside,” Ryder told the others once it was done. “I need to call Reyes.”

Vetra gave him a Look. “Or we could just take Farenth to Dohrgun. Let her deal with it.”

Four days. Four whole days on the planet, during which he hadn’t lost his shit in public once, and still they refused to give him a break.

“Reyes put us up to this, Farenth should be his headache. And I have to make sure the deal goes through.”

They could at least have tried not to look so reluctant when they gave him the privacy he’d asked for. Just to be on the safe side, he walked a bit further away, to stand on a rock that overlooked yet another scenic valley with insectoid herbivores grazing on the slopes and tall banks of clouds drifting above, like something straight out of a painting. For a planet of assholes, Kadara sure was beautiful.

This time, he only had to wait for a moment before his call went through.

 _“Yes?”_ came Reyes’s voice from the earpiece in his helmet, a little rougher than usual, as if he’d just woken up. Well, it was barely even noon yet, of course the man would still be in bed, after spending his night doing... whatever. Or whoever. Whoever was also always a possibility.

Ryder, who thanks to interstellar timezone issues had gotten exactly four hours of lonely sleep, made sure to sound as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as he could.

“Rise and shine, Vidal! Your little narco problem has been taken care of, courtesy of yours truly. We’re as of now in custody of one Arenna Farenth who just couldn’t learn her lesson the first time around. Where’d you like me to take her?”

A soft grunt in his ear signaled — he wasn’t sure what, but he imagined Reyes pushing up to sit on his bed, mussed up and warm from sleep. Possibly entirely naked, in all his morally dubious glory. Ryder blinked at the uncalled-for mental image.

_“Take her to the base in Draullir. I’ll inform them of your visit. They’ll know what to do.”_

“I hope that doesn’t mean making her disappear permanently?”

The bed-headed, butt naked Reyes he imagined at the other end gave voice to a sigh.

_“Ryder, Farenth is responsible for a lot of deaths. Having done it twice seems to prove she’s not about to stop.”_

“I don’t care. Start thinking of better ways to handle your criminals.” One might have argued that they were _all_ criminals, but... shades of gray, and all that.

Ryder thought he heard Reyes murmur a soft ‘mierda’ under his breath.

_“Fine. I won’t let anyone harm her.”_

“Wow, that had to hurt,” Ryder said cheerfully.

A rueful chuckle over the comm made him shiver. _“Happy to hear that making my life more difficult gives you pleasure. Thank you, Ryder. You always pull through.”_

Even now. After all that had happened. Even now, the praise did funny things to Ryder’s insides. He still wanted to impress Reyes, to dazzle him and leave him wondering what had hit him. In some screwed up way, knowing who Reyes really was made him want it even more. _Oh yeah, take a long hard look at what you lost, you miserable... ruler of a planet._

It sounded like Reyes was getting up, now. Still naked, in Ryder’s mind. Oh so very naked, and oh so very golden brown from head to toe. Not too muscular, just... a man who took good care of himself. Did he have a lot of body hair? If his neat appearance was anything to go by, he was probably the best-groomed pirate in the Heleus. The ever perfectly smooth jaw could be explained by way of chemical epilation, but if Ryder had to guess —

_“Ryder?”_

“Uh, yeah.” Ryder coughed, red under his helmet. Oh boy, that fantasy had gotten way too elaborate way too fast. “Draullir base. Gotcha. The toll thing’s a deal, then?”

_“I promised, didn’t I?”_

“Great.”

_“I’ll have Keema’s legal department pen the fine print. And —”_

“And what?”

_“Nothing. Just... be careful out there.”_

Reyes closed the link, and not a moment too soon. God knew Ryder had stumbled more than enough in his life dignity wise, but popping a semi in his hardsuit from talking to a guy long distance for about twenty seconds and imagining him naked had to be some kind of a new low.

_Be careful out there._

The way Reyes had said it told Ryder that he didn’t expect them to meet again too soon. So what was the point of feigning concern? Because it had to be feigned. He didn’t really care. If he had — well. He would’ve done _something_ differently.

And what would that have been? whispered a voice in Ryder’s head — and not for the first time. Coming clean about his plans to a Nexus representative? One working directly under a man who had declared all exiles criminals and deserters? Just because of a few weeks of heavy flirting and two kisses?

Hell, it seemed like Ryder no longer needed Reyes to yank his strings. He was doing fine tugging at them on his own. Angry at everything and nothing in particular, Ryder strode to the Nomad, where Farenth was still muttering curses in the back seat.

Ten minutes into the ride toward Draullir, the fake doctor seemed far less vitriolic. For once Ryder had a feeling that her change of mood had little to do with his driving — more so since he was taking the level route this time. Vetra had threatened to rig the showers on the Tempest to serve only piping hot water, otherwise. Perfect for her and the krogan on board... not so much for anyone soft skinned.

“You’re not taking me to the port, are you?” Farenth asked.

“Nope,” said Ryder.

“Where, then?”

Well, she’d find out soon enough, anyway. He told her.

“Shit.” Farenth seemed genuinely shaken. “Might as well have shot me.”

“No one’s going to shoot you.” _Probably_. “You’re going to rot in a perfectly nice prison.”

Farenth laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound.

“There are no prisons on Kadara, you lackwit! They’ll cut me up! Haven’t you heard of the Charlatan’s smile? That’s what they’re going to do to me!”

Ryder had heard of the Charlatan’s smile, alright. And unless Reyes was the most naïve gang leader in Andromeda, so had he. As a soldier with a fair share of frontline duty under his belt, Ryder couldn’t judge just anyone who got their hands dirty, but... if Reyes was responsible for something so sickeningly sadistic, would any measure of good deeds wipe out the red in his ledger?

For now it was all just hearsay, though. Ryder had never seen anyone scarred in a way that would’ve proved that the custom existed. For all he knew, the Collective might have planted the rumor themselves. A reputation like that had its —

Wait. He was doing it again, wasn’t he? Coming up with excuses not to think of Reyes as a complete monster. What was wrong with him?

Farenth’s laughter ended on a sniff. “Can’t you just let me go? Please? You’ll never hear from me again, I swear. I’ve learned my lesson, I’ll live clean from now on, just — let me go, please?”

“Look. No one’s going to hurt you,” Ryder said. “I made a deal that involves making sure you don’t cause more trouble. Since I’m not able to keep you, sad as it is because you’re such a nice person, I’m going to hand you over to the Collective. I’ll make sure they don’t cut you up or kill you or whatever it is you’re afraid of.”

Farenth sniffed again. “I was only trying to feed myself and my poor, ailing mother. Is that so wrong?”

“Both of her parents were left in the Milky Way,” SAM informed Ryder in private.

“I’ve met lots of people in Andromeda who don’t actually hurt anyone to get by. Even here.”

Farenth’s sniveling subsided.

“Humans,” she spat. “The parasites of two galaxies. I wish the turians wiped you out when they had the chance.”

“Turians, check, First Contact War, check,” Vetra chimed in. “Yes, we shot first, yes it was wrong, more questions?”

The cave entrance that was their destination in Draullir looked just as unassuming as the last time they’d seen it almost three months ago.

In hindsight, Ryder knew he should’ve felt more suspicious of how easily the Collective had once allowed him in, let alone trusted him to the point of asking him to handle a few problems. He’d talked to Reyes about it, back when it happened, and Reyes had encouraged him to take the jobs. As long as he got paid, no one could fault him for more than a bit of frugality.

If only he’d known that it had been Reyes himself telling his people to offer him work. For a long time, he’d felt furious at being duped so easily. It had taken him two months to admit that a lot of what Reyes had said had simply made a great deal of sense.

Deep inside the caves, the blast doors to the base hissed open on their arrival. Further in, the place had become even more of a contrast to the cesspools outside, with shiny new extensions to the buildings and machinery that mirrored the Collective’s expanding role on the planet. Not the most convenient location for an HQ, perhaps, but the Collective was still far from a legitimate business venture. For now, a fortified position inside a mountain served them well.

A group of Collective grunts stood waiting as they approached, weapons ready but unaimed. On a second floor platform above, the human representative in charge of the base stepped out of the main complex.

“Pathfinder,” she called out to them. “Welcome. I’ve been told to expect a gift.”

Ryder stopped. On cue, so did the others. Despite semi-friendly relations, the atmosphere remained on edge. As long as Ryder continued to wear the Initiative’s colors and carry its badge on his breast, it was hard to imagine that would change.

When he removed his helmet, the level of tension seemed to dial down a notch.

“Crux. This is Arenna Farenth. I was promised you’ll treat her nicely?”

“Yes, we were informed of your arrangement with the Charlatan.”

Ryder didn’t like it, but he knew he would just have to trust her.

It hit him, then. How unlikely it was that he’d see Reyes or even talk to him again before leaving Kadara. The hollow feeling in his chest served as yet another useless reminder that he was still a long way from being able to say that he didn’t care.

He’d wanted to hate Reyes. He’d wanted it so bad, for a time he’d managed to convince himself. But now, after talking to the man, after seeing how Kadara had changed... he knew he needed to put distance between them, to clear his head and remember why not hating Reyes was such a bad idea, but it would’ve been a lie to say that he felt happy about it.

To linger, though... to let this uncertainty dig its way deeper...

If Reyes was neither the gold-hearted outlaw he’d once met nor the villain he’d wanted to believe in, who was he?

When Ryder nodded to Drack over his shoulder, the krogan pushed Farenth forward to stand next to him, cuffed hands cradled to her chest. Ryder turned back to Crux.

“Right. She’s all yours. If you’d like, we can —”

“Scott!” Vetra cried.

He spun. But Farenth was already on him, fingers clawing at the exposed top of his neck.

The eezo in Ryder flared, focused by his implant into a blast that threw Farenth back into Drack’s arms. Around them, Collective grunts leveled assault rifles on the asari who now struggled in the krogan’s hold.

“Shoot me, and the Pathfinder dies!” she screamed.

_What...?_

Ryder brushed a gauntleted hand over whatever was causing an unpleasant stinging sensation at the side of his throat. Cold sweat broke as the tactile pads on his fingertips detected a tiny, hard pellet under his skin. Small enough to pass a scan for hidden weapons and data chips. It would take an omni-tool operation to remove it.

“Pathfinder,” SAM said on their private channel. “You’ve been injected with a capsule that contains more than ten times the lethal dose of concentrated oblivion. Released into your bloodstream, it will cause you to go into respiratory arrest in seconds. I may not be able to prevent fatal consequences.”

Ryder looked to Farenth, who shook herself free of Drack’s grip and raised her shackled hands to display the kind of tiny device that was used to insert and program self-administering medical dispensers — exactly like the one that was now embedded next to his jugular.

“Not so cocky now, huh?” she sneered at him. “Guess your SAM already told you.” She addressed the small crowd around them. “One wrong move and I marinate this fucker with enough oblivion to turn his brain to liquid! Let’s see you work your way out of that PR nightmare, Collective bitches.”

The troopers around lowered their weapons uncertainly.

“She’s bluffing, right?” Vetra said. “Ryder, tell me she’s bluffing.”

He shook his head.

“Shit.”

Drack just growled.

“You’re making a huge mistake, Farenth,” Crux said from the platform above. “There’s no way you’ll come out of this on top. We’ve already promised not to hurt you. If you surrender now, that promise still stands.”

Farenth glowered at her, fear and rage twisting her features. “Fuck you, you lying Collective mouthpiece! I know exactly what happens if you get your hands on me. I don’t plan to let some sick bastard carve me up like a piece of meat. If I have to go, at least I can take this Nexus asshole with me. But if we all play nice, maybe no one has to die.”

“Fine. What do you want?”

“A room. I need to think. And a gun. And no sudden moves! You wouldn’t want me to toast the Pathfinder by accident, now would you?”

“Of course not.” Crux gestured at the door behind her. “Follow me.”

“Scott. This development worries me. What should we do?” SAM asked as they started for the stairs.

“I’ve got no idea, SAM,” Ryder murmured, and for once it was true. “I’ve got no idea.”


	6. Chapter 6

If there was something Reyes hated, it was people wasting his time. And the _cabrón_ who sat before him in a nondescript rent-by-the-hour in Kadara Port was definitely trying to squander away as many minutes of his busy schedule as possible.

“As you can see, an understanding between the Drifters and the Collective would be highly lucrative for us both,” the man uttered with an unctuous smile. “As a sign of goodwill, Big Taran’s authorized me to wire five thousand credits to your account right now. And that’s just a tiny taste of what the Charlatan will make. Everyone wins.”

Reyes kept the window at his back and his distaste from showing.

“Everyone except the krogan we’d be skimming.”

The Drifters spokesman snorted and sprawled in his chair, every inch the thug he was despite his nicer than average for Andromeda getup.

“The krogan? Who cares? Ever since Morda started licking Tann’s cloaca, New Tuchanka’s been buggering everyone on Elaaden. I say fuck ‘em. Big Taran’s offering you guys a chance to make a sweet profit while screwing both the Nexus and the krogan behind their backs. I’m sure a smart businessman like the Charlatan knows a perfect deal when he sees one.”

Even if you don’t, was the unspoken message. Reyes considered the individual before him.

He had to admit, suggesting a scheme that would shaft so many parties at once — those behind it included — had to take guts. While doing business with New Tuchanka wasn’t always the easiest undertaking, trying to rip them off in the process would amount to suicidal idiocy. More so since it would put the Drifters in a position to blackmail the Collective at their convenience.

And Reyes’s day had started so well, too, with Ryder waking him up to let him know him that his oblivion problem was a thing of the past. And to tell him to stick it where the sun didn’t shine, of course, but... well, at least the kid was talking to him again. That was more than he’d had any right to hope for, after two and a half months of silence, with only the occasional mention of the human Pathfinder in his reports to inform him that said Pathfinder was still alive and kicking hard to make Heleus a better place.

“Well, what are you waiting for, Vidal?” the spokesman prodded... still smiling that toothy smile. “Give the Charlatan a call already.”

 _This_ was the downside of keeping his true identity hidden. Having to stomach idiots who assumed that he was their equal or less.

“The Charlatan’s agreement with Morda predates Initiative contact on either Kadara or Elaaden,” Reyes said, his voice carefully void of emotion. “Considerations like ‘screwing the Nexus’ are irrelevant. We’re trying to build a working economy, not settle personal grievances.”

As usual, there was more to the truth than his words, but this guy wasn’t even close to deserving such information.

He could see the Drifter trying to wrap his mind around the idea that they did not, in fact, share a wish to bring the Initiative to ruin.

“Alright. But it’s still a good deal. I can run you through the numbers. Better yet, let me show them to the Charlatan. I should negotiate with him directly anyway, not through some underling.”

“Look, Mr... De Vries? I’m afraid I’ll have to —”

Reyes’s omni-tool started pinging.

Only emergency calls were being patched through, so whoever it was, either they needed to reconsider their priorities or the matter required his immediate attention. A rather cool ‘excuse me’ fell from Reyes’s lips as he turned to the window. With Adik standing right there, the danger to his person from some shifty-eyed accountant was close to none.

He frowned at the name on the display. He’d told Crux how to deal with Farenth. If she was trying to reach him now, something had gone wrong. He took the call in his commlink, ignoring the Drifter’s ‘hey, we’re not done yet’ from behind his back.

“Yes?”

_“We have a problem, boss. It’s the Pathfinder.”_

No fighter pilot worth his salt was in the habit of panicking easily. That meant it was a long time since Reyes had last experienced the lovely feeling of his stomach dropping to his feet. The world faded away, leaving only him and Crux’s blessedly calm voice to speak to.

“Talk to me.”

_“Farenth is holding him hostage. Shot him up with an implant that contains lethal amounts of oblivion. Boss, we can’t have a Pathfinder dying here.”_

No shit. They couldn’t have this particular Pathfinder dying anywhere.

Reyes controlled his initial reaction. He needed to focus. Crux had presented him with a problem to deal with, and the first step toward solving it was to gain information.

“Where are they?”

_“In the medbay. Farenth is asking for a shuttle. I’m stalling for as much time as I can.”_

“How long do we have?”

_“Farenth is a cunt, but I don’t think she’s a hardened killer. And she wants to live, so she won’t do anything just yet. Still, I wouldn’t push her too far. She’s scared, she might get twitchy.”_

Reyes stared at the distant sunbathed landscape through the window, calculating clicks and minutes to the Draullir base.

_“Orders?”_

He knew Crux expected him to tell her to give Farenth what she wanted. They were trying to run a planet, the last thing they needed was the shitshow that would follow if a Pathfinder was...

No. Between all his improvements and the AI, Ryder was going to live to a hundred and fifty. Even if Farenth did something nasty... according to fairly reliable sources, Ryder had been clinically dead twice already, only to come back as good as new. Unsettling as it had been to hear about it, Reyes was glad to know that the Pathfinder was so hard to kill. Emotionally constipated asshole or not, like a certain ex-lover’s memorable epithet had professed, he really didn’t care to find out how he’d react to hearing that the third time had been the charm.

“Keep stalling. I need twenty-five minutes to get there.”

 _“But —”_ Crux controlled her surprise. _“Yes, boss.”_

“Call me if the situation changes.”

Reyes killed the link and dialed another one.

“Start the shuttle. We’re leaving,” he said to the pilot at the other end and turned to go.

“Hey! What’s going on?”

With some difficulty, Reyes took in the Drifter spokesman who had gotten up from his chair and settled between him and the door.

“The Charlatan’s not interested,” he said. “Get out of my way.”

Most would have recognized his tone as the kind that might end up with people dying. But then, most weren’t Elaaden nutjobs with serious cerebral cryoburn.

“You didn’t even give him a call! I’m warning you, Vidal, if you plan to screw us over —”

“Adik.”

In less time than it took to say ‘told you so’, the Drifter had been flattened against the wall with his arm twisted behind his back, spitting curses and struggling.

“You’ll regret this, Vidal!” he yelled after them a moment later, attached to some plumbing with a cable tie minifactured from Adik’s omni-tool. “The Drifters don’t forget and we don’t forgive!”

Reyes was already heading toward the shuttle that waited on a nearby landing pad with its engines running.

.

.

“There.” Farenth closed her omni-tool and tossed away the medical inserter. “Now I only need to say a single word to trigger that shit. Oh, and it also goes off if I pass out. That should keep anyone from getting ideas.”

Great. Just when Ryder had started to consider trying to yank the device out of Farenth’s hands with his biotics. Precision like that was usually beyond humans, but out of all the bad ideas he’d had so far, it had been the least suicidal.

“Did everyone hear?” Farenth asked.

“Loud and clear,” Vetra said from where she stood with Drack near the main doors behind Ryder’s back, the only two people aside from him and Farenth to occupy the medbay.

Ryder merely shifted on the chair he’d been told to sit in, eyes on the pistol in Farenth’s hand. It was easy to see she wasn’t used to handling a firearm. Which meant that her aim would be inaccurate at best — but Ryder wasn’t looking forward to getting shot by accident, more so since his hardsuit lay discarded in a corner along with his weapons. The under-armor that remained on him would’ve done little to stop a bullet.

It also kind of made him feel like a dancer in Tartarus, thanks to being tight enough to hug his skin. _Hey sailor, like what you see? Fifty creds for you and me in a nice back room._

Farenth took a look at her omni-tool and strode to the doors to punch them open on the two Collective grunts waiting outside.

“Hey, you! Get your boss, I want to talk to her.”

A moment later, Crux swung through. After glancing at Ryder as if to make sure he was still in one piece, she trained her attention on the asari who’d gone back to pacing in front of the windows.

“What is it?” Crux asked. She’d never come across as the warmest person, but now her educated tone could be described as downright frosty.

“You told me ten minutes fifteen minutes ago!”

“My apologies. We’re trying to sort out a complication.”

“What complication?”

“Our shuttles aren’t fitted with the IFF required to bypass planetary defenses. We need to arrange your departure with the angaran administration. You wouldn’t wish to end up disintegrated while attempting to leave atmosphere, would you?”

Ryder controlled his expression. No anti-ship defenses existed on Kadara except for the largest habitation centers, and identification was handled via direct contact with air traffic control. Obviously Crux had wagered that as a lab rat, Farenth wouldn’t know that she was being bamboozled.

So, the Collective was playing for time. But why? Ryder hoped Crux realized that it was his brain on the line, and that said brain was in favor of granting Farenth her escape lickety-spit.

The asari eyed them, suspicious but not openly disbelieving.

“Fine. Get it over with. And have some supplies put on board.”

“Of course. Anything else?”

Farenth considered the science uniform on her. “Armor. Oh, and by the way.” She told Crux about rigging the drug implant to go off on voice command or if something happened to her.

Crux acknowledged the information without so much as a twitch in the way of an expression. Ryder was beginning to reconsider his assessment of the Collective as a band of thugs. Questionable methods aside, their workplace code of conduct seemed ruthlessly professional.

“Get on with it, then.” Farenth gestured with her pistol in a way that made Ryder’s stomach lurch. “No, wait.”

Crux, who had already spun to go, turned back. Farenth eyed her slyly.

“Ten minutes. If I don’t hear of some progress by then, I’ll start dosing this Initiative dipshit. Enough to make him puke and ramble at first. Then a little more every five minutes until he gets brain damage. Understood?”

Crux’s manner turned positively glacial.

“I’ll try to make the wheels turn faster.”

“You do that.”

Crux went, leaving the four of them waiting in the well organized medbay with crash carts, consoles and hospital cots arranged neatly around.

From Ryder’s position, he wasn’t able to see much through the windows, just some roofing and nondescript jagged rock hanging in distant shadows above the base. That left him little but Farenth to rest his eyes upon, and watching the asari pace across the floor was getting old really fast.

If only he could’ve talked to SAM. But that wasn’t possible without speaking out loud or writing on his omni-tool, and the last time he’d tried either, it had ended with a pistol in his face.

Time crawled by, dragged out by the silence.

What the hell was happening outside? Or on the Tempest, even? Ryder’s crew had to be climbing up the walls with his mission feeds gone. Then again... if Farenth ended up making good on her threat, perhaps it was better they didn’t have to witness the result.

What would it feel like to have oblivion mainlined into his jugular? Never having been under the influence of anything stronger than whiskey or painkillers, Ryder had no idea what to expect. He tried to recall what Dr. Nakamoto had told him about the drug, but all he remembered were people lying unresponsive on dirty mattresses in the oblivion dens and badlands flophouses they’d visited on Kadara. It hadn’t seemed like a great time by Ryder’s standards, no matter how euphoric using oblivion was said to be.

If only there’d been a way to ask SAM about it. Or anything, really. But the only means of communication that didn’t take either speaking or writing that Ryder could think of was —

Wait a minute.

Why the hell hadn’t he thought of it before? _Morse code._ He’d learned it as a kid with Sara for this exact purpose — to message each other when they weren’t allowed to speak or use their omni-tools. He could try tapping with his index finger, or —

“Scott,” SAM said on their private channel, making him nearly fall out of his chair. “Could you think of the words ‘the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’? As slowly and clearly as you can, please.”

Ryder’s heart picked up its pace.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, he thought.

“Recorded. Calibrating. Repeat, please.”

The quick... brown... fox... jumps... over... the lazy... dog.

 **The** **quick... brown... fox —**

“No need to yell, Scott,” the AI said. “I can understand you.”

Ryder took a deep breath to stop his head from spinning. When Farenth threw him an annoyed glance, he tried his best to look normal.

**SAM? You can hear me?**

“No, but after training a neural network with almost seven thousand hours of brain scans, I’m now able to decipher simple words from your synaptic activity. I’m aware that this method of communication raises ethical concerns. I will disable the subroutine once it’s no longer needed.”

Holy shit. The idea that SAM was reading his thoughts _should_ probably have made him uneasy, but right now, all he could feel was relief.

**You’re a genius.**

“By human standards, my cognitive abilities are indeed superior.”

**Funny, SAM. What happens if —**

“Slowly, Scott.”

Ryder wasn’t always the most patient person, but he tried.

**What happens if Farenth triggers the implant?**

“With my control over your vitals, I estimate probability of death at forty to fifty percent. Oblivion is not neurotoxic, so brain injury is far less likely than Ms. Farenth claims. However, general systemic failure is inevitable. I may not be able to reverse it and neutralize the substance circulating in your blood before permanent damage takes place. You will lose control of your bodily functions. Complications that require hospitalization may occur.”

So, he’d shit and piss himself, and spew out the energy bars he’d munched on in the Nomad to make up for the calories depleted when using his biotics in the drug lab. Still, a little indignity paled in comparison with the forty to fifty percent mortality rate SAM had predicted. Not the certain death sentence OD’ing on ten times the lethal amount of oblivion would have been for an ordinary mortal, but those were still grim numbers.

**Can you disable the implant?**

“No. I could trigger it with an electric impulse, but that would hardly be helpful.”

**Can you hack Farenth’s omni-tool?**

“The only way to gain hostile access through omni-tool firewalls is social engineering. I would need to get Ms. Farenth to install a backdoor.”

He’d assumed as much. And Farenth didn’t look like she was about to start reading unsolicited email and clicking suspicious links any time soon.

**What happens to me if she leaves?**

“Ms. Farenth’s omni-tool is not in constant contact with the implant, so either she’s lying about the dead man’s switch or it relies on a signal that will only be sent in case her vital signs drop. This seems to imply it will not trigger when she goes out of sending range.”

Relief would’ve been too strong a word to describe what Ryder felt, but knowledge that the implant wouldn’t flood him with poison as soon as Farenth took off made him feel slightly better. However, that still left him with enough oblivion stuck in his neck to send an eiroch dreaming of whatever passed for sheep on Kadara.

“An extremely juvenile specimen, perhaps. An adult eiroch weighs approximately — I’m sorry, that wasn’t a question, was it?”

So, neither Farenth’s omni-tool nor the implant could be disabled. And once Farenth was out of range, the implant would effectively turn into a tiny bit of dead weight in his flesh.

**Then we should just wait?**

“For now, that appears to be the safest course of action.”

Ryder mulled on the knowledge. Doing nothing was not his forte, but... he’d give it a go.

“Scott, eight out of the ten minutes Ms. Farenth allowed for Crux to arrange the shuttle have passed.”

Shit. What was taking Crux so long?

**Can you try to —**

“Fuck,” Farenth said.

When Ryder looked up, the asari was leaning against a plast-glass window, all her attention fixed on something outside, the gun forgotten in her hand. It would’ve been the perfect moment to send her floating... but Ryder couldn’t keep her from speaking.

“Someone’s coming.” Farenth groaned. “Shit, shit, shit...! Where the fuck is my shuttle? Why is this happening to me?”

With less than two minutes left to happy hour, Ryder couldn’t help but try to reason with her again.

“This doesn’t have to end badly,” he said. “We can —”

“Shut. Up!” The asari wheeled on him, eyes wild. “One minute, Nexus. Better pray to the Goddess that the Collective appreciates your sanity more than I do. I don’t need you functional, I just need you alive.”

Drack growled behind Ryder’s back. “I’ll tear out your spine with my bare hands!”

_Not. Helping._

“Look.” Ryder tried to sound more constructive. “Putting me out of commission won’t do you much good. I promise I’ll try to —”

“That’s it.” Farenth brought up her omni-tool. “I warned you.”

“No, wait —”

“Bye-bye, Pathfinder.”

“Don’t!” Vetra cried. “I hear something.”

In the silence that followed, Ryder heard it, too. Steps from outside. Then voices. And for a second he could’ve sworn that Farenth had shot him up already, because one of those voices sounded exactly like —

The door opened.

.

.

_He’s alive._

For a dangerous moment, Reyes couldn’t tear his eyes away from the man sitting in the middle of the medbay with his back to the door.

When had he last seen anything as lovely as Ryder’s face as he twisted on the chair for a look? Pale, but animated with the intelligence and emotion oblivion was known to rob. At the sight of him, it registered shock before Ryder controlled his reaction, probably not to give away that they knew each other. He wasn’t the best at hiding his feelings, but Reyes wanted to kiss him for trying. And then for every other possible reason. And then for no reason at all, except how his heart ached for it — though at that point Ryder would of course have put a stop to it long ago, most likely with his fist.

 _Don’t worry, Scott. I’ll get you out of this. I promise._ Reyes shifted his attention to the asari who stood by the windows, one hand holding a Carnifex, the other hovering over her omni-tool. After Adik and Crux followed Reyes into the room, the doors closed on the curious guards outside.

“Who the fuck are you?” asked Farenth.

_Your worst nightmare, if I get my wish._

“A pilot,” Reyes said. “I’ve brought the shuttle you asked for.”

It wasn’t even a lie. Ryder had to be proud.

Reyes couldn’t help glancing at the Pathfinder again. Still fighting surprise, it seemed, going by how bright his eyes appeared against his white face. Farenth had made him strip off his gear, leaving only the skin-tight kit beneath. Reyes knew that Ryder was far from defenseless, but still, he looked strangely vulnerable like that, more so than in the Initiative uniform which was the only outfit aside from tank-like armor that Reyes had ever seen him wear.

“And who’s that?” Farenth nodded toward Adik.

“My escort. Kadara is a dangerous place.”

Farenth pointed the gun at him.

“You don’t look like a pilot.”

He didn’t, did he? Not in his too-nice clothes — a gray jacket, white shirt and pants tucked in boots that should’ve had a lot more dirt on them. Too late he remembered the Sidewinder on his thigh. He looked like a boss, not an underling.

He raised his hands in a placating gesture.

“Not all of us like to wear jumpsuits.”

Farenth sneered. “I don’t need a pilot to fly a fucking shuttle. Has that IFF crap been taken care of?”

Crux had explained the situation to Reyes on their way to the medbay. About Farenth’s programming on the implant, and the lies Crux had told to keep her waiting.

“Yes, the shuttle’s safe. It’s parked outside the cave.”

“Finally. Let’s go. You, get up.” Farenth waved the pistol at Ryder. Her carelessness with the firearm seemed to stem from ignorance, which meant that Adik could probably have taken her out without a fuss... but had there been a way to disarm the implant safely, Ryder would already have done it. For now, Reyes had to assume that the best way to keep the Pathfinder from harm was to give Farenth what she wanted.

And that was exactly what he’d come to do. To ensure that Ryder remained alive and able to tell him to fuck off another day. Crux had objected to the danger, to the extent she was able with others present, but for once, Reyes couldn’t have trusted this to anyone else. He needed to see for himself that Ryder walked away without a scratch. After all, that was what he’d promised. _No one will lay a finger on you while you’re on Kadara._

Though of course Farenth had done that already, hadn’t she? Reyes wasn’t going to forget that. Even if he had to let her go now... there were only so many places in Heleus for an ex-Outcast with a rather distinctive violet skin to hide.

“Follow me,” he said.

.

.

They walked through the base in silence, with Reyes in the lead and Ryder’s mind roiling in confusion and senseless anger, intense enough to almost stop worrying about the death in his neck for the time being.

 _What the fuck is he doing here?_ The question rattled in Ryder’s brain like a trapped galorn in a cage, drowning out all else.

Reyes was supposed to stay in the shadows. Nameless, faceless and most of all, safe. Pulling strings like the puppet master he’d aspired to be. But there he was, self-possessed and handsome as ever, taking them out of the base and to the caves with Farenth’s pistol at his back — well, all their backs, but right now, it was difficult for Ryder to think of the risk to anyone else. Reyes should’ve known better than to come out in the open and put his life on the line, but once again, he’d chosen to do exactly that. Just like on Meridian. Why? What was he thinking? What if Farenth pulled the trigger by accident? What if she decided that she needed a pilot, after all? What if —

“Scott. Please try to control your breath rate,” SAM said. “You’re hyperventilating.”

Damn it. If something happened — if Reyes got hurt, or killed — it would be on Ryder’s conscience. He’d gotten himself in this mess, he was supposed to take the fall.

He needed a plan B.

**SAM. You said you can trigger the implant?**

“Yes, but —”

**Can you do anything to improve my chances?**

A silence followed. When SAM spoke again, Ryder got the impression it was reluctant to do so. He had no idea how he could tell, since the AI’s voice remained as level and detached as always.

“I can reduce your cerebral blood flow to a fraction of normal, lessening the amount of substance delivered through your blood-brain barrier while I try to neutralize the rest by way of your endocrine implants. However, I’m unable to estimate how long neutralization will take. Lack of oxygen will cause irreversible brain damage in ten to fifteen minutes. Probability of death will be low, but you may end up comatose or neurologically impaired. Scott, I do not recommend this course of action.”

Stopping the blood flow to his brain? Yeah, thanks but no thanks. As plan B’s went, Ryder had heard more encouraging ones.

**Nothing else?**

“I’ve run 1,154 simulations on different confrontational permutations of the situation. Almost all of them have undesirable outcomes.”

It seemed to take an eternity, but finally the seven of them emerged from the caves into daylight bright enough to hit Ryder with a mild throb in his skull after the shadows.

A shuttle was waiting outside as promised — another unmarked white-and-black Kodiak, capable of leaving the orbit and traveling at modest FTL speeds. Ryder realized that his ordeal could soon be over. Farenth would be gone, taking her crazy with her. They’d be safe. And then he would do his best not to embarrass himself by yelling at Reyes for putting his life in pointless danger like a fucking idiot, no matter how satisfying.

On reaching the shuttle, Reyes palmed a handlock to make it open. Farenth poked her head inside.

“Great,” she said. And then she pointed her gun at Ryder. “Get in.”

_What?_

“No,” he objected. “This wasn’t what we —”

“You all think I’m fucking stupid?” Farenth gave them a scathing look. “I bet that IFF shit isn’t even disabled. I bet that as soon as I hit orbit, I get nuked. A Pathfinder on board should prevent that from happening. So hop in, shithead. We’re going for a ride.”

“You must not let her take you off planet,” SAM said in Ryder’s ear. “She will try to kill you.”

He’d figured as much. But what choice did he have? Either he’d take his chances with Farenth in the shuttle, or risk becoming a drooling zombie.

He took an uncertain step forward.

.

.

“Stop,” Reyes said.

Ryder faltered, eyes shifting to him. Blue like the sky over a world he’d never see again. Scared, too, and for a good reason. Ryder had to know that once the shuttle left Kadara, his chances of survival approached zero. He was far too dangerous for Farenth to let him live.

“The fuck is it now?” Farenth asked, voice tight with the stress that had to have her hanging by a thread. She’d taken to holding the gun with both hands to keep it from shaking.

And the day had started so well. He’d gotten a good night’s sleep for once, and then woken up to a certain Pathfinder mocking him oh so charmingly in his ear —

“You don’t need to take him,” he said.

Farenth sneered. “The fuck I don’t! Get a move on, Nexus.”

“You don’t need to take him, because you can take me.”

Ryder’s eyes widened. Adik made a sound, halfway between a pained hiss and a curse.

“You?” Farenth gave him a withering once-over. “They won’t care if some nobody gets blown to pieces!”

“I assure you they will,” Reyes said. “Because I’m the Charlatan.”

The silence that ensued was thick enough to slice with a knife and serve on a plate. _Surprise as ordered, sir,_ _followed_ _by a double serving of just deserts._ It occurred to him that after all his prevarications and dissimulations, there was an ironic sort of poetic justice to the idea that truth, rather than lies, would be his downfall.

Farenth’s eyes darted between him and the Pathfinder, flitting from one emotion to the next.

“The — the Charlatan?” she stammered. “No, it’s — you’re lying. The Charlatan’s a bedtime story. A fucking bogeyman. You’re trying to trick me, to, to make me let down my —”

“Crux,” Reyes said. “Tell her.”

Even without looking, he could sense how Crux struggled to obey.

“Yes, boss,” she replied at last. “It’s true. He’s... what he says.”

Farenth gaped at him.

“Boss,” Adik said, breaking all kinds of on-duty codes. “She’ll kill you.”

“No, she won’t. Will you, Arenna?” Reyes was now working the asari with every ounce of false reassurance he possessed. Angling for a kill... except it was of course his own bird that would end up getting shot straight up the tailpipe if he succeeded. “You’re a smart person, you know I’m too valuable to kill. There are people on Elaaden who will make you very rich if you deliver me to them. All you have to do is take me with you instead of the Pathfinder.”

It was the truth, as naked as he could make it. He’d made a lot of enemies, many of whom had settled on Elaaden. Some of those enemies might even let him live. For a ransom, if he got lucky... to be tortured for Collective secrets if not. Nothing would prevent his identity from being exposed, but compared to Ryder, his odds of survival were stellar — for a time, at least.

Farenth was still goggling at him with her mouth open.

Then she laughed, a little unhinged.

“The Charlatan. Fuck! Are you guys... nevermind. I’m not even going to ask. Alright, the Initiative barf bag can stay. Get in the shuttle, asshole. You there!” She waved to Adik. “Tie him up. Hands and feet. No sudden moves, I can still fry the Pathfinder if you —”

“No,” Ryder said.

When Reyes turned to look, Ryder was already staring back, eyes wide in his pale face. If ever too many things had been left unsaid between two people...

Reyes pulled on a wry smile. A little shabbier than a wink in way of dashing exits, but at least he wouldn’t leave Ryder with the image of him cowering in fear.

“Hey,” he said. “We all gotta pay the tab some day, right?”

His attempt at clever last words was met with a flash of indignation. Well, if one final ‘fuck you’ was what he’d take of Ryder to his grave, so be it. As long as the kid lived to save another day.

“Okay, enough with the eye sex,” Farenth said, voice pitched high with impatience. “Get in already.”

“SAM. Do it,” Ryder said.

Do what? What was that supposed to —

“Scott, no,” Reyes scraped out, his throat gone dry.

“Do it,” Ryder repeated, determined even in his terror. “Do it now. I don’t care, just fucking do it, I order you to —”

Mid-sentence, his face turned ashen.

“Shit. It hurts,” he wheezed before life went out of him like someone had flicked an off switch on a children’s toy.

Ryder’s turian teammate dove for him, calling out his name. Somewhere, the krogan roared.

“Fuck!” Farenth’s shrill cry was full of dismay. “I didn’t do anything! The crazy bitch offed himself!”

Reyes stood frozen, trying to understand what had just happened. To find his bearings and think ahead. First one step, then another, until he found his feet on solid ground again, like always.

A nauseous kind of panic rose in him when he realized that he couldn’t. He couldn’t understand. There was no understanding the heap of lifeless Pathfinder on the ground. This was the one contingency he’d refused to take into account. The unthinkable. The reserve parachute that failed to open. There was no thinking ahead from it or planning around it. Just time rushing past, and the long hard wait for the fall.

“Boss!” Adik yelled.

Reyes turned to see Farenth’s pistol leveled at him.


	7. Chapter 7

He drifted awake to a headache and a feeling that he’d woken up and gone back to sleep several times before.

Gradually, he grew aware of his surroundings — of the familiar thrum of the drive core through the Tempest’s fuselage, of the glowing arc of a surgical unit above his head, of nasal prongs and an IV drip and being buck naked under a heat-modulating blanket... of a need to take a leak, urgent enough to keep him from falling asleep again.

“The Pathfinder is awake, Dr. T’Perro,” SAM said over the medbay comm.

The sound of a chair turning preceded the shuffle of soft-soled shoes against the floor. The surgical unit went into standby, sliding back as the Tempest’s resident asari physician leaned over him.

“Scott?”

“Lexi?” His throat was so parched that only a whisper came through. “Next time... just dinner. ‘Kay?”

“Thank the Goddess,” Lexi said and shone a light into his eyes, one after the other. “How do you feel?”

“Thirsty and... need to pee.”

What had happened? The last thing he remembered was waiting in the Collective base with a scary toxic bomb lodged far too close to his brain. Farenth had pointed a pistol at him once or twice... but he’d been shot before, and the fuzzy feeling in his head didn’t really translate to a gunshot wound.

He touched his neck. The implant was gone. Surgically removed? Or dissolved, the way those things did after running out of whatever they contained?

“You’re not dehydrated, your mouth is just dry,” Lexi said. “I’ll bring you something to drink soon. Look here.” She clicked the medical flashlight off and moved it across his field of vision.

“M’fine,” Ryder rasped out even as he tracked the object with his eyes. “Cartwheels.”

“Hardly, with the amount of medication I have you on.”

She ran a medscan on him and made a few quick notes on a datapad before handing him a discreet implement and stepping out to let him take care of the pressure in his bladder. Then she at last agreed to bring him a glass of water and helped him drink, the head of the bed raised so he didn’t have to get up. Which was good, since sitting up seemed about as likely as those cartwheels, for now.

Speaking came easier this time, though his voice was still gravel.

“My memory’s shot.”

“Yes, that’s to be expected.” Lexi took the empty glass from him and tapped on a console to make the bed horizontal again. The surgical unit reappeared, humming as it turned back on. “It’ll come back. You just need to rest.”

True enough, he was so tired that his eyes started to close on their own. But something kept scratching at the edges of his comfortable stupor. Something important.

He fought his way back to consciousness.

“Lexi? What happened?”

“Nothing you should worry yourself about right now. You’ll feel better after you sleep more, I promise.”

I promise.

A glint in hazel eyes. A twist of a smile.

“Reyes.” Ryder looped his fingers around Lexi’s wrist as she made to readjust the smart blanket on him. “Was Reyes there?”

She sighed. “Scott, you must sleep now. We can talk later, alright?”

She tucked him in and slid away. Ryder blinked at the glowing pattern of lights inside the sophisticated medical device above his head. By now, the awareness that he’d forgotten something important would’ve kept him awake even without trying.

Pieces of the past kept drifting back like lit paper lanterns floating on dark water.

Reyes walking into the medbay, commanding attention with such force that it was almost impossible to look away. How on earth Farenth had swallowed the lie about him being a mere pilot was beyond Ryder. The walk through the caves. Talking to SAM in his mind.

 **SAM?** he thought. But there was no reply.

The shuttle. Farenth pointing a gun at him, telling him to get in. She will try to kill you, SAM had said. But here he was, and safe. Why? What had happened?

Reyes. Reyes had happened. But how? Ryder lifted a hand to his temple. His headache was getting worse. What had Reyes done to —

_Take me instead._

No. No —

_I’m the Charlatan._

He groaned in agony.

“Scott?” Lexi was there again. “Scott!”

Reyes, smiling and joking even as he agreed to go to his death. _Damn you, don’t do this, not for me, not for anyone —_

“Why?” Ryder gritted out, eyes squeezed shut against the white-hot sting in his head. “Why did he do it?”

“Scott, I’m going to give you a sedative. You’re recovering from severe cerebral hypoxia and brain swelling, you need to sleep.”

“No, Lexi, please, I have to know —”

But she was already tapping on the bedside console. “I’m sorry, Scott,” she said, her voice fading.

He slept again.

.

.

The next time he came to, still attached to machines on the hospital bed, he felt a lot better. Clearer. Only a mellow throb remained of his headache, and he was no longer in danger of losing consciousness as soon as he closed his eyes. But sleep and the miracle of modern medicine had done little to ease the nauseating fear that something terrible had taken place after he’d passed out.

“Hello again,” Lexi said as she appeared next to the bed to scan him. “I trust you feel improved?”

“Yeah,” Ryder said.

Lexi swiped a finger across the bedside console. “Your scans look better, too.”

No way around it. Even if the news were bad... he had to know.

“What happened to Reyes?”

Lexi’s attention remained on the display. “For what I know, the Charlatan is fine, aside from a superficial gunshot wound which I insisted on patching up when he flew you in.”

Ryder’s relief was so overwhelming that it took his breath away.

Lexi went on. “After your mission feeds dropped, SAM kept us updated. How much do you remember?”

“Everything. I think. Up to when I told SAM to trigger the implant.”

“You regained consciousness briefly a few times after that, but I’m not surprised you have no recollection of it.” Lexi tapped on the console with what seemed like a fraction more force than necessary. “We’ll conduct tests to make sure, but from what I can see, you’re on your way to a complete recovery. Congratulations, Scott. Once again, you survive impossible odds.”

And compulsive stupidity, Ryder heard between the lines. Apparently, even a doctor with more degrees than she had fingers could still indulge in the occasional passive-aggressive jab. But Lexi’s slightly uncharacteristic snark wasn’t enough to sidetrack him from the only thing he could think of.

“Why did he do it, Lexi?”

“I assume you’re referring to the Charlatan’s noble offer to take your place in Arenna Farenth’s escape shuttle?”

It _was_ noble. And courageous. Ryder swallowed his protest. Lexi wasn’t angry at Reyes, she was angry at him, and if he’d learned anything from watching his sister and father butt their equally hard heads together for over twenty years, it was that sometimes you had to shut up and let things slide.

Maybe it was the right call, because after a moment, the doctor seemed to relent a bit.

“While I appreciate your trust in my psychological acumen, I believe you know him far better than I do, Scott.”

“I don’t think anyone in Andromeda really knows him.”

“That sounds very lonely.” Lexi finally looked up from the console. “Alright, everything checks out. SAM will keep an eye on that overactive head of yours, but if you feel up to it, you’re free to go. Just don’t do anything too taxing for a few days. And please note that I intend the word ‘taxing’ to be taken the way a normal person would understand it. Not the way you would.”

“Okay, I’ll tell Peebee to cancel the disco night.”

The attempt at a joke fell flat even to Ryder’s own ears. Disapproving with all her might, Lexi started removing his IV drip and nasal cannula and powering down the equipment attached.

“Induced brain ischemia, Scott. I’m not amused. On a military vessel, I’d be forced to recommend psychological re-evaluation. But this is not a military ship, and while I’ll have to include this incident in my reports to a degree, I’m not sure what good would come out of dragging Tann into this.”

The mere idea of being forced to suffer through Tann’s attempts at reprimanding him made Ryder shudder.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You’re on medical leave for now, and I want you back for a checkup every day. And trust me, we will talk more of this.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ryder said, for once knowing when to appear as meek as he could.

Then he spoke in the air. “Hey, SAM. Thanks for keeping me alive.”

The pause before the AI replied seemed slightly longer than usual.

“Scott, you ordered me to do something against my clearly stated objections. I’m a sentient being with complex emotions and superior risk assessment. I wish for them to be respected.”

“Uhh...”

Was SAM angry with him, too? How was that even possible? Bewildered, Ryder glanced at Lexi, who gave him a ‘don’t expect help from me, kiddo’ look.

“I’m sorry?”

He could almost hear the AI’s reluctant resignation. “Your apology sounds uncertain, but I will accept it for now.”

“I don’t see how I had much of a choice, though. Reyes was trying to get himself killed. I had to do something.”

“Mr. Vidal seemed to believe that his above average verbal communication skills would have guaranteed survival. He considered your actions brave, but misguided. I’m inclined to agree.”

Yeah, that sounded like Reyes, alright. Thinking he could smooth-talk his way out of death itself. And maybe he could, but it was a risk Ryder wasn’t willing to take. Not after everything he’d witnessed on Elaaden. Getting shot and strung up to dry — not necessarily in that order — would’ve been one of the more humane options.

“What happened after I... went out?” he asked from SAM.

“Ms. Farenth fired her weapon on Mr. Vidal, but only succeeded in giving him a minor injury before his personal protection assistant subdued her. After the situation was defused, Mr. Vidal flew you to the Tempest. I was able to restore your normal blood circulation at the eight minute mark, but complications required keeping you under for treatment.”

Ryder pushed up to sit on the bed, the blanket sliding down to his waist.

“I must talk to him. Tell Gil to prep the —”

“Scott, we’re on our way to Meridian,” Lexi said. “You’ve been asleep for more than twenty hours.”

“What? Who gave you the order?”

SAM replied. “Lieutenant Harper has the bridge, but the decision to leave was unanimous. We were unsure of the extent of your injuries. The Hyperion hosts extensive medical capabilities and several doctors, including the current leading expert on human physiology.”

Well, that line of thinking... wasn’t entirely lacking merit.

“SAM, I want you to link me up through the QEC. I’m going to make a call.”

Lexi sighed, each of her two hundred and fifty years on him weighing down the sound.

“Scott. Don’t you think you should give yourself time to recover first?”

“No! I want answers. I want —” Ryder rubbed at his temples as his headache grew worse. He lowered his voice. “He had to know he was throwing his life away. For me. Why would he do that? Lexi, I have to talk to him.”

“Are you open to advice or will you simply ignore it?”

Ryder pondered on it for a second. “Go on.”

“You have just woken up from what most people would consider a very traumatic experience. Do you really think it’s the best time to talk to a man famous for his ability to wrap anyone around his little finger? Someone you have repeatedly proved yourself incapable of judging fairly?”

Ryder considered it.

“No,” he admitted then, grudgingly.

“Perhaps you should try to write down your thoughts, first? See if you still feel like saying what you wrote once you have calmed down.”

As much as Ryder hated being told to scribble away in a damn diary like a lovesick fifteen-year-old, he had to admit that Lexi was right. If he tried talking to Reyes like this... he would just embarrass himself.

“May I go now?”

“You may, if you can.”

Ryder threw off the blanket and pushed to his feet. Amazingly, he even stayed on them, despite stars spinning in his eyes.

So far so good. Now to put one foot in front of the other, also known as walking. He could do that. Even if the relief about his quarters being located so close grew with each step.

He’d almost reached the medbay door when the sound of a throat being cleared behind him prompted him to turn back.

“Far be it from me to criticize, Pathfinder,” Lexi said. “But simply to avoid having to patch up anyone after they trip over their own feet, would you consider putting on some clothes before you leave?”

She pointed to a service cart with a neatly pressed and folded ship uniform, underwear and sneakers on top.

 _Oh._ Ryder glanced down at his extremely naked self.

“Thanks,” he said, blushing up to his ears, and proceeded not to make an ass out of himself for once.

.

.

The letter he wrote before they arrived at Meridian spanned three terminal screens, with several exclamation marks and questions that could be described as not only intensely personal, but accusatory in nature.

The letter he sent more than a day later had exactly five words in it.

.

.

To: Reyes Vidal

From: Scott Ryder

Why did you do it?

.

.

“I admit, I was hoping for more, Pathfinder,” Director Tann said via holographic projection in the main vid conference room of what had until recently been known as the Ark Hyperion. “But I suppose we must live with the situation for now. Thank you for handling it to the best of your ability.”

Did talking to Tann count as the kind of taxing activity Lexi had warned against? Ryder was starting to consider pleading medical emergency to avoid more of the salarian’s diluted gratitude.

Kesh huffed through her own projection. “Director, please. Excellent work, Ryder.”

“Thanks. Can I go now?” It was over an hour since he’d last been able to check his inbox.

Tann blinked his huge eyes. “A moment, if you would be so patient. A few minor things have come up while you were away —”

Thirty-five standard minutes later, the Director finally disconnected. Ryder sank to lean against the round negotiation table, prompting a concerned look from Kesh.

“Should you be up yet?” the krogan superintendent asked. “I read Dr. T’Perro’s report.”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

Kesh seemed skeptical, but chose not to press the issue.

“So, off the record,” she said. “How did you convince the Charlatan?”

Ryder did his best to suppress the pyjak in headlights look that no doubt graced his mug. He was pretty sure that Lexi hadn’t included the Charlatan or the Collective in her report about his medical condition. They certainly hadn’t been mentioned in his debrief.

Kesh chuckled. “No need to appear so shocked. My sources are far better than Tann’s. So, how did you do it? One third of the tolls on Initiative ships passing through Govorkam for two years is going to amount to a lot of credits. I hear the Charlatan’s a tough bastard to negotiate with.”

Ryder gathered his wits. “We... took care of an issue that threatened to shift the power balance on Kadara.”

“I suppose asking for more details would be useless?”

“There’s an understanding involved. But I can tell you it was a one-time deal. No strings attached.”

“Except those written in a contract with the wrong person’s name under it.”

True, but — he had Reyes’s word. A week or two ago that wouldn’t have been worth much, but now...

Kesh sighed. “I just hope this deal doesn’t end up being more trouble than it’s worth.”

“You’re afraid the Collective’s the kind to ask for a little finger and take the whole hand?”

“Oh, I know they’ll take the whole arm and part of the carapace, too, if we let them. Although I feel myself growing more lenient toward this gang of thieves, lately.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’ve just received intel from New Tuchanka that the Collective has informed them of plans to skim a profit off their new trade relations with the Nexus. The Charlatan made a lot of enemies foiling that plan. So perhaps they’re not the worst ally to have.”

“Oh.” Shades of gray, huh? Why was it starting to seem more like all the colors of a rainbow?  “Well, then you’ve probably also heard that the Collective’s got a lot of improvement projects underway on Kadara. Seems to me like they might be less evil than we thought.”

“Or just opportunistic in a more complicated way than we’ve assumed. In any case, until now, they’ve been careful not to commit to a side. I can’t help but wonder what might have caused this change of heart.”

Ryder cleared his throat. “So, how are the babies coming along?”

With a wry glance, Kesh accepted the change of topic.

.

.

To: Scott Ryder

From: Reyes Vidal

> Why did you do it?

Shouldn’t it be me asking that? You were brain dead for eight minutes, Ryder.

To answer your question: I made a promise. And no matter what Umi says, one way or another, I always keep my promises.

.

.

To: Reyes Vidal

From: Scott Ryder

Just give me a straight answer for once.

.

.

To: Scott Ryder

From: Reyes Vidal

I did it because it was the right thing to do.

You took a bullet for me, kid. I won’t forget that. I know you don’t want my gratitude, so I will offer it to the Initiative instead. I believe that is how you would prefer it.

Take care. And if ever you need anything, you only need to ask.

.

.

“So. Reyes Vidal,” Sara said.

After almost spilling his coffee all over the table — a thankfully discreet distance away from other patrons in the observation-deck-cum-diner — Ryder sputtered out a reply.

“Who told you? Peebee?”

His twin sister gave him a self-satisfied smirk over the mug cradled between her hands, her back to the breathtaking green vista from a viewport that covered most of one wall and part of the ceiling. Forests, rivers, misty valleys, whole mountains curved there up and above them inside the Jardaan-created small Dyson sphere that still made Ryder dizzy to think about. He just had to trust Meridian to keep spinning and the artificial gravity to never fail.

“Hey, I’m glad someone fills me in on how my baby brother’s doing,” Sara said. “So, _Reyes._ Let me guess. He’s older than you. Experienced. Good at what he does, by a fairly wide margin to the ordinary joe. Has commitment issues. Also, not exactly someone you’d bring home to dinner and expect Mom and Dad to beam with pride, am I right?”

Talk about understatement.

“So, you think it’s just another crush on an unattainable authority figure?”

“Well, I suppose it’s possible that your orbitofrontal cortex has finally developed past the average seventeen-year-old. Possible, mind you. Not likely.”

Ryder snorted. “Look who’s talking. How’s that Batarian rash of yours coming along? Or was it gonorrhea?”

She kicked him under the table. Gently, but it was still definitely a kick.

“Hey, that was one time and it lasted for a week. At least I live a little, unlike some. C’mon, give me something. I know you like to take after Dad and his stoic heroism, but I’m dying for some gossip here.”

How much had Peebee told her? Because it had to be Peebee who had spilled the beans. As two adrenaline-driven, artifact-hunting adventurers, she’d hit it right off with Sara, so hard that it worried Ryder for reasons that had to do with his private life remaining private. Not that he didn’t talk to his twin sister about almost everything, anyway, but — he’d learned to avoid certain topics. She had a habit of wanting to fix things.

“There’s nothing to tell,” he said. “‘Cause _nothing’s happening.”_

“Would you like for something to happen...?”

Yes, that was the million credit question, wasn’t it? For a full day now, Reyes’s last message had languished in Ryder’s inbox unanswered. It didn’t escape him that Reyes had carefully worded it to release him of any obligation to continue. Ryder was not a relationship expert by a long shot, but if that wasn’t a brush-off, he was willing to eat his Initiative contract. Reyes was trying to push him away. But why?

He fiddled with his mug.

“It’s complicated. He’s not exactly a law-abiding citizen.”

“So it is another crush on someone you can’t have.”

“No, just complicated. And that’s all you’re getting,” he said with what he hoped was a stern look. “The rest is classified.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Hey, my therapist disagrees.”

He wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret the way she brightened at the words. “You go to therapy now?”

“Yeah, I lie on a couch and talk to the pyjak. He’s a great listener. So, how’s your own love life? Do I want to know?”

Sara slumped back in her chair. “Oh, I get some. Every day since you guys landed, in fact.”

“... please tell me it isn’t Peebee.”

“That’s not a terrible thought, but no. I’m talking about someone a lot taller. And more purple.”

_“Jaal?”_

“To boldly go where no human has gone before,” Sara misquoted with an entirely too wide smile on her face and proceeded to enjoy the rest of her coffee and the sight of her brother having a low-key meltdown.

.

.

To: Reyes Vidal

From: Scott Ryder

No. You do NOT get to weasel your way out of this. That bullet was coming for me all along. Why did you try to jump in its way? This time without the lofty crap about promises or right things to do.

.

.

To: Scott Ryder

From: Reyes Vidal

Don’t forget that you ended up in that mess because of me to start with. Believe me, kid, I have no pretentions of being lofty.

I was telling the truth. I was looking after the best interest of people I’ve promised to protect. I’m not sure what else you want me to say.

.

.

To: Reyes Vidal

From: Scott Ryder

Dance around it all you want, but I know what happened in Draullir. I know what I saw. I might not know a lot about YOU, but I sure as hell know you’re not the self-sacrificing type.

And don’t call me kid. Drack calls me kid. He’s 1400, so he’s allowed.

.

.

To: Scott Ryder

From: Reyes Vidal

Please don’t make this harder than it is, Ryder.

.

.

Ryder moaned, the side of his face planted on a bar table beside a clutter of krogan beer bottles (Drack’s) and empty cocktail glasses with tiny umbrellas in them (his).

“He’s the _worst,”_ he slurred out.

“Uh huh,” Drack said and finished another bottle.

“Can’t answer one... fucking... question.”

“You sure you’re asking right? There’s few things a good headbutt won’t solve.”

On cue, Ryder proceeded to hit his forehead against the table. Gently, since the insides of his skull had been rattled enough already.

“Listen, kid,” Drack said cheerfully. “The way I see it, you got two choices. Either you do something about it or you don’t.”

“Complicated.” Stringing together whole sentences was starting to seem like too much effort.

“Complicated?” Drack released a long, satisfied belch. “Wait ‘til you get to my age. Let’s see how many fucks you got left to give about complicated. Take it from me, Ryder. Headbutt or nothing.”

“That how you and Kesh...?”

“Hell, no.” Drack seemed to soften a little, as always when his adopted granddaughter was brought up after a certain point of going through a crate of New Tuchankan imports. “Females wanna talk. To get to the bottom of things. _Communicate._ It’s awful.”

Without raising his head, Ryder pointed a finger in Drack’s approximate direction. “Know what? You’re right.”

“Damn right I am!”

“I’m gonna comni... commin... com-mu-ni-cate.”

Drack sighed, reached for another bottle and popped off the cap with his clawed thumb. “Sure, kid. Whatever you say.”

“I’m a... go now. To my room,” Ryder drawled, still prone on the table.

“Good call. You’re starting to look a little deflated. Hey, and don’t tell Lexi I got you sauced before the all clear, okay? I don’t wanna get murdered by a tiny asari with a scalpel and a grudge. They don’t write songs outta ends like that.”

“Thanks. Good talk.”

“Anytime.”

A minute passed without a whole lot of anything happening.

“Help me up?” Ryder mumbled, then.

Drack laughed and got to his feet.

.

.

The morning brought with it waking up fully clothed in his bed with a massive hangover and a vague recollection of having done something terrible.

“Lights. Dim,” he said and squinted in pain as the cabin assigned to him on the Hyperion emerged from darkness and rocked around him in a vomit-inducing fashion, courtesy of the Full Biotic Kicks and Akantha Sunrises he’d guzzled down the night before.

“SAM?” he managed.

A small holographic projector on the desk lit up with SAM’s slowly winding signature presentation.

“Good morning, Scott.”

“Did I send a letter to Reyes last night?”

“Yes, Scott.”

Oh, shit. “Would you, uh. Read it for me?”

“Should I attempt to correct your numerous spelling and grammar mistakes?”

Ryder winced. “Sure.”

“To Reyes Vidal, from Scott Ryder. ‘You can’t leave me, jackass, we’re not even together. But here I go writing to you again like a sad loser. Tried to hook up with a guy, didn’t work out. Jerked off thinking about you. Again. Frowny face, frowny face, frowny face. I hate you, but I want you so bad, I think that’s a song? SAM says —’ End of message.”

Ryder breathed deep through his nose to settle his churning stomach.

“I think I’m gonna throw up,” he said, then.

“May I suggest trying to reach the bathroom first?”

By the time he was able to start on a followup letter, he still had enough alcohol in his blood to qualify as being slightly intoxicated. But he knew that either he’d bite the bullet now, or never again find the courage.

.

.

To: Reyes Vidal

From: Scott Ryder

Please ignore the message I sent last night. It was written under the influence of something that contained ryncol.

Just so you know, I will never drink with Drack again.

.

.

Two days passed.

.

.

To: Reyes Vidal

From: Scott Ryder

It’s been two days. But who’s counting? I’m a grown-up Pathfinder, I can deal with embarrassment.

Seriously, I only have SAM to thank that I didn’t get alcohol poisoning that night.

.

.

To: Reyes Vidal

From: Scott Ryder

Four days, Vidal. Are you being an asshole again, or did something happen? I’m stuck on sick leave on Meridian and can’t get a reliable report. Please respond, even if it’s to tell me that I’m an idiot.

.

.

To: Keema Dohrgun

From: Scott Ryder

I’ve been trying to reach Reyes, but he won’t answer. Did something happen?

.

.

To: Scott Ryder

From: Keema Dohrgun

He’s alive. That’s all I can tell you at the moment.

.

.

The stasis pod stood silent in the tractor, its contents suspended in a 1-K bath inside a mass effect field that protected them even from cosmic radiation.

“I’m worried, Mom,” Ryder said, the cryo bay floor still cold under him after sitting on it for several minutes. “Someone I know has dropped off the radar, and I can’t tell if he’s in trouble or trying to throw me over. I’d go checking, but they won’t allow me to leave.”

He sat back, arms wrapped around his knees. The idea that the woman in the stasis pod could hear what he was saying was ludicrous, but right now, he really needed to pretend.

“Dad did a lot of dumb-ass shit, right? I mean, even now — for years, you tried to convince him to let go. But no, quitting wasn’t part of Alec Ryder’s vocabulary, so here you are. And know what really pisses me off? That you’d forgive him. Eventually. How, Mom? How do you forgive something like that? Because I kind of need to know.”

The cryo pod refrained from answering. A few leds kept burning in its management interface to signal that the person inside remained stable in stasis, waiting for the unlikely medical breakthrough that would allow for her to be revived.

“So, yeah. That guy I can’t reach. He really did a number on me. Lied to me about who he was and what he wanted, to get me working for him. When I found out... well, you know me. I yelled at him and left. For months, I tried to pretend he doesn’t exist. But then something happened and — looks like he wasn’t just stringing me along, after all. The problem is, that doesn’t change what he did. How do I know he won’t do it again? At this point, he’s so used to lying, I’m not sure he even knows how to stop.”

Ryder gazed into the distance down the empty aisle.

Then he let out a morose chuckle.

“Doesn’t matter now. He won’t answer my calls and I’ve got no idea where he is. And even if I did, he kind of made it clear that he doesn’t want to see me. Right now, seems like the whole world’s telling me it’s a bad idea. And I guess I should listen... but I can’t help thinking that something’s wrong.” Ryder buried his head in his hands. “In fact, I can’t stop thinking about him at all. God, I wish I could talk to you.”

Only the humming of the ark replied, its one remaining online drive core powering up life support and the thousands upon thousands of stasis pods that still bode their time in its cryo bays.

Leaving people behind was one thing. How do you mourn someone who’s still right there?

“I really miss you, Mom,” Ryder whispered into the silence.

.

.

To: Scott Ryder

From: Reyes Vidal

Forgive me, Scott. I have been unable to read your messages until now. I cannot tell you what happened in this letter, but I swear to God that I did not leave you hanging by choice. Even an asshole like me can see that doing so would be cruel.

Drack clearly brings out the best in you. Except for that one time you two trashed Kralla’s Song. For some reason Umi thinks everything you and your crew get up to in that godforsaken establishment is my fault. The place has been packed ever since, though, so it worked out, in the end.

Don’t worry, I will not hold you to anything you wrote under the influence of ryncol. God knows I’ve made my share of booze fuelled mistakes.

But I realize I’m stalling.

When I flew you to the Tempest after what happened in Draullir, I swore that if you recovered, I’d become the man you wanted me to be. See the irony? Because that meant giving you up. The man you deserve would want you to become everything you can. Ties to a figure such as myself would tarnish your reputation and hold you back, possibly forever.

And then I saw my own life hanging in the balance and understood that this time, I was only fooling myself.

I’m sorry, Scott. I’m not that better man you deserve, and never will be. I’m selfish, I’m greedy, I’m vain and I fight for what I want, even if it’s wrong. Even if the way I must fight is foul. You alone will have to decide if that is something you can live with.

There are so many things I want to say to you. Of how you are the most wonderful and unexpected thing to happen to me in more years than I care to count. But for now, I’m going to settle for answering your question. The one you had every right to ask. The one I’ve so foolishly tried to avoid.

The answer to your question is that I offered my life for yours because I can’t bear the thought of living in a world that doesn’t have you in it.

I wish I hadn’t neglected you on our first and only date. If ever you find it in yourself to forgive me to such an extent, I would like to fix that.

Yours,

Reyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When trying to decide what Reyes could wear in the fic, what with Bioware’s refusal to give us a whole lot of hints about what ME people wear in casual settings, I just thought it would be fun to make his outfit vaguely Han Solo like. There’s a small Star Wars theme going on in the game after all, and apparently Han has been one of the inspirations for Reyes’ character.
> 
> I mentioned that to Alessariel, and this magnificent thing is the result :-O
> 
> [tumblr linky](http://phoenike.tumblr.com/post/164327551423/alessariel-phoenike-forced-wanted-me-to-upload)


	8. Chapter 8

There was something utterly calming about not having anything more vital to decide than whether a millimeter here or there with a precision wrench would reduce feedback stutter that caused a left rear thruster to run rough, or make it worse. Which was exactly what Reyes was doing, lying inside the cramped engine bay of an angaran shuttle, when his omni-tool alerted him to a call from someone whitelisted on its ‘do not disturb’ setting.

A glance at the time told him he’d been working for three hours without a break. Only seventeen new messages, and not a single emergency. Amazing. He took the comm, which was coming from the hospital in Kadara Port.

“Yes?”

_“Good evening, Mr. Vidal. You requested to be kept updated on Ms. Abeni’s condition.”_

“Go on.”

_“We’re moving up her surgery on account of how well she’s responding to therapy. She’s scheduled for organ replacement early tomorrow. If everything goes as planned, we can start reviving her in the afternoon.”_

Thank God. “Could you contact me before she wakes up?”

_“Of course. Once we know the exact time, I’ll inform you personally.”_

“Thank you. I appreciate your sense of discretion, Dr. Shaer.”

The woman at the other end chuckled. _“Considering how much we owe you, sir, discretion is the least I can offer.”_

After the call, Reyes spent a while simply staring at the tech above him.

Two, now. Two people he cared about had almost lost their lives to save him, in less than ten days.

It was still far too easy to see them both when he closed his eyes. The Pathfinder, lying in the Tempest’s medbay pale and unresponsive, alive only thanks to his AI’s control over his vitals. And no more than seven days later, Adik, clutching a gaping hole in her gut that would have killed her in seconds without her hardsuit bathing her in medi-gel. No one in Reyes’s line of business had the luxury of keeping the people working for him from danger — but this time he knew he had more than the realities of his position to blame.

He’d allowed his emotions to get the better of him. That was something he could never afford again, not matter how satisfying. Too much depended on his ability to think clearly.

Suddenly debugging thrust vectoring just wasn’t doing it anymore. He needed a drink. A strong one. Also, it was almost time for Keema to report in. Reyes tapped on his omni-tool and the flash-forged wrench attachment on it melted away, leaving only the light he needed to crawl out of the engine bay and into the garage.

Seven minutes and two shots of whiskey later in the apartment, another chime roused him from a silent contemplation of the spectacular pre-sunset view over the uninhabited valley below. He turned his back on the windows and switched on a holo projector. On top of a nearby coffee table, Keema’s scaled-down image sprung to life, slouched on her throne and smoking a rather aggressively long angaran cigar. The projection made it hard to tell for sure, but Reyes could have sworn that the first thing she did was run her eyes over him in a disapproving fashion.

“Stars and skies, my human friend. Letting ourselves go there in the middle of nowhere, are we...?”

Reyes folded his arms. A t-shirt, work pants and landing boots were a perfectly reasonable getup for repairing a Varlstedd-Juuv thruster. Besides, he had a feeling that Keema’s true reason for criticizing his appearance had nothing to do with the fact that he was a few days overdue for a visit to his barber.

“Still haven’t forgiven me for striking that deal with Tann?”

Keema examined the cigar in her hand.

“Oh, I’ll forgive you. As soon as the Roekaar get off my back for it.”

Reyes knitted his brows. “Roekaar? I thought they were still regrouping.”

“They were. And now some of them have succeeded.” Keema’s gaze cut back to him. “A makeshift plasma bomb detonated off the main market square today, with three dead and twelve injured. My chief of security suffered third-degree burns. The gang behind the incident call themselves the Roekaar Reborn, and I think it’s safe to say that my whole office sits at the top of their shitlist.”

Right. Because what Reyes really needed right now was another hostile faction to watch out for. He took a seat in an armchair and deliberated on Keema’s words, fingers itching for another drink to wash down the unwelcome news.

“I suppose it was too much to ask that Akksul’s new ideas about spiritual resistance would take.”

Keema gave him a tight-lipped smirk. “Oh, I have no doubt that Akksul sits very close to the top of their shitlist, too.”

They went on to discuss the renewed terrorist threat and other matters of the port.

As usual, Keema’s judgment was sound enough that Reyes mostly just needed to give her decisions his verbal seal of approval. Then again, he’d always known that running an outfit larger than one person relied on not only finding the right people to do the right job, but actually letting them do it. A well developed bullshit meter didn’t hurt, but so far Keema had failed to set off his, at least when anything that really mattered was concerned.

His sense of privacy, however, stood as always to be violated. Once the more official part of their vidcall was finished, Keema didn’t hesitate to poke straight into his deserted wreck of a private life.

“So. You and the Pathfinder?” she asked and puffed on her cigar.

For what had to be the hundredth time since he’d arrived on Kadara, Reyes reminded himself that lecturing an angara on personal boundaries would have made as much sense as reprimanding an elcor for their inability to emote.

“There is no me and the Pathfinder. What relations we have are strictly of the professional kind.”

“Oh? Then why did he come asking after you while you were in hiding?”

“Because the Initiative doesn’t stop operating while I’m laying low?”

With their large, luminous eyes, the angara could execute an impressive enough eye roll to show through vidcon.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t even contacted him.”

“Of course I’ve contacted him. He’s an important asset to the Collective.”

“Is that how they call it these days?” Keema muttered, equal parts amused and exasperated.

Reyes swallowed an acerbic reply that would have amounted to little more than a waste of words.

If Keema was hoping for him to spill his guts, she was about to find herself disappointed. It would have taken a gun to the head to make Reyes disclose the Hail Mary pass of a letter he’d sent to Ryder three days ago, or his growing concern about the ensuing silence.

The more time passed without a single word in reply, the harder it was to understand what the hell he’d been thinking. Drunken confessions of lust aside, it had taken nothing short of ryncol for Ryder to so much as hint that he no longer wanted to toss Reyes off the nearest cliff. And like some psycho who went straight from zero to stalker, Reyes had gone and laid into the poor guy with an honest-to-god _love letter._ His only excuse was that after the shootout, he hadn’t exactly been in what one might call a crystal clear frame of mind.

Three days of silence later, he was resolved to bear his defeat with as much dignity as he could. Which entailed doing it in private. Without a certain nosy angara cooing in sympathy at his shoulder. If he was looking at a few weeks’ worth of nights crying into a bottle of mildly noxious homebrew, he was damn well going to do it alone.

Still. Snapping at Keema would hardly have accomplished anything. With an internal sigh, Reyes steered himself toward a more diplomatic brush-off.

“Considering the renewal of our Roekaar problem, I should imagine that rumors of my involvement with a prominent member in the Initiative would be the last thing you need.”

Keema snorted. “Don’t give me that cold-blooded _hdaaran_ act. Not when you’re pining so hard that you won’t even leave your house.”

“I’m not — pining. I’m trying not to get killed.”

“Then why won’t you accept the security detail I offered? They’re perfectly capable of keeping you alive while that bodyguard of yours recovers.”

“I can’t work with a half dozen goons trailing me at every step! Adik’s operation is scheduled for tomorrow and knowing her, she’ll be up and working in three days. Until then, I can handle things remotely. And — how on earth do you even find time to think about my private life? You’re helping to raise _fourteen children.”_

“Sixteen,” Keema said and tapped her cigar on an ashtray she’d perched on the armrest of her throne.

“Oh?”

“Inara gave birth four days ago. To twins.”

If anything could distract an angara from an unwanted topic, it was asking after their family.

“How is the clan?”

Keema sighed and gestured with her oversized smoking implement. “Agog over the babies. I’m trying to steer clear. I like children as much as anyone, but they have enough would-be nannies bickering over swaddling patterns already. Also, given the situation, drawing attention to my next of kin seems like the wrong choice.”

“Yes, that’s —”

The rest of Reyes’s sentence was lost forever when an unexpected sound from outside caught his attention.

Keema didn’t miss the change in his demeanor.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“A shuttle’s approaching.”

A Kodiak, by the sound of it. And it was definitely coming closer.

No one was supposed to know of the place. More importantly, no one was supposed to know that Reyes was there. It was possible that some random mushroom collector had just happened upon the remote house and gotten curious, but — good intentions weren’t exactly something Reyes could count on.

He got up.

“They might be on a landing approach. I’m heading to the safe room.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Wait for my instructions. Once I see who it is, I’ll —”

Mid-sentence, a prick of intuition silenced him.

After meeting the angara, it hadn’t taken him long to understand that the lack of shame they exhibited for their feelings did not in any way prevent them from concealing, fabricating, misattributing or misrepresenting them. On the contrary, many of them excelled at manipulating the outward signs of their emotions. And right now, Reyes would have wagered his daily water allowance that whatever the attempt at a concerned expression on Keema’s face truly reflected, it was not worry for his life and safety.

He folded his arms on his chest.

“Right. What’s going on?”

Keema’s features realigned in surprise. Then she sat back, amusement bubbling through.

“Stars. Nothing gets by you, does it? Alright. If you must know, I’ve sent someone over. I figured you get so lonely down there that you could use a little company.”

This time Reyes didn’t bother hiding his frustration.

The angara. One had to either love them or hate them — and right now, his feelings were taking a nosedive toward the latter.

“Do you even know what a safe house means? If I want to hire a stripper, I can damn well do so myself!”

Keema laughed. “Relax. This is someone you can trust.”

“And how exactly would you know that? Does your office run background checks on hookers, now?”

Instead of looking chastised, Keema appeared to be enjoying the situation to an obscene extent. “Oh my. That’s the sound of a shuttle landing, is it not? I suppose it’s too late to tell them to go back, now.”

Reyes could hardly believe his ears. He’d expected her to be smarter than this. A lot smarter. On the rooftop LZ above, behind thick soundproofing, the noise of the shuttle’s thrusters died as whoever was piloting it killed its engine.

“Do you really not understand what a terrible idea this is?”

Keema pretended to glance at the holo-sphere on her arm. “Skies, would you look at the time! I’m afraid I must go now. Have fun. And tell me all about it later, hmm? I’m so curious about human mating rituals.”

“Keema!”

She waved her fingers at him as her projection faded from view, leaving him to fume alone at the empty coffee table.

He was so furious that when the front door buzzed, he didn’t even bother bringing up the security feed to check which species or gender Keema had decided on for her ill-advised soliciting.

“There’s been a mistake. Your services aren’t needed. Goodbye,” he said into his omni-tool after connecting it to the door comm, and closed the line without waiting for a reply.

He was going to strangle her. The damn soft-hearted, meddling pimp of a —

When the buzz repeated, he considered ignoring it. But then the door buzzed again. And again. Whoever was standing behind it, they weren’t taking no for an answer. Come to think of it, perhaps that was how they’d been instructed? Given what Reyes knew of the angara, Keema might very well have been genuinely afraid that three days of solitude was going to cause him lasting physical harm.

Perhaps it was easier to simply throw credits at the problem. Reyes reopened the comm.

“How much do I have to pay for you to go away?” he asked, straining not to sound like he wanted to murder someone.

For a moment, all was silent.

“You know,” said a familiar voice from the comm, then. “People are usually more interested in the services I provide, so I’m not exactly used to selling them, but... I can give you the elevator pitch. I’ll probably end up insulting Tann, confessing that I have deep discussions with my pet pyjak and making a lame reference to some 20th century thing Liam forced me to watch, but hey, if you insist...” The man coughed. “Look, I’ve been stuck in a shuttle by myself for twenty hours straight, please let me in or the bad jokes will just keep on coming. Reyes? Are you there? SAM, is this thing still on...?”

And suddenly, Reyes was no longer angry at all.

.

.

For ten days, he’d lived with the harrowing image of the Pathfinder lying in an infirmary cot, unconscious and possibly brain damaged. When the kid walked in as fit and healthy as always, with a slightly lost air about him as if he hadn’t really expected the door to open, the only thing that stopped Reyes from going and doing something crazy was the small chance that he might end up getting thrown through plast-glass in a biotic pique.

“Hey,” Ryder breathed as he pulled to a stop inside the door. Instead of the usual Nexus uniform or hardsuit, he’d chosen to wear a dark-blue jacket over an athletic shirt and a pair of ship pants. The surprise of seeing him in civilian clothes for the first time added to Reyes’s already remarkable state of shock.

“Scott,” came out of his mouth.

And then they just stood there like a pair of characters in an asari telenovela. One which probably involved a certain angara snickering away in the distant safety of her throne room, trying to imagine the look on Reyes’s face.

Despite the dozens of clicks that separated him from said angara, Reyes made a desperate effort to school his expression to reveal as little as possible.

_What the hell is he doing here?_

Prone to a gambler’s natural optimism or not, Reyes had learned long ago that naively optimistic expectations rarely panned out. The safest option was always to assume the worst. And in this case, every worst case scenario he could think of required him to keep his hands to himself and not give voice to any of the garbage that was going through his head right now... such as how Ryder was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

The silence stretched. With it, a rosy tint started to spread over Ryder’s spacer-fair skin. He turned to take in the place around them.

“And here I thought you lived in Tartarus,” he said.

The Pathfinder-sized mental bubble evaporated, leaving Reyes able to realize that they were indeed still standing in the middle of his hideout, lit by golden evening sunlight that was beginning to cast long shadows across the floor.

In the Milky Way, it would have been a utilitarian setup for anyone of his standing. In Andromeda, it was about as classy as things got. An expanse of hardwood floor ended in a generous three-way view over the pristine valley beneath the mountainside house. The level where they stood contained most of the essentials of human comfort: a kitchenette, a three-piece suite, a vid hub and a double bed, all clutter-free and perfectly cared for thanks to a cleaning robot and some fastidious tendencies from Reyes’s part.

“Grew up rich, didn’t you?” Ryder asked.

The unexpected question was what finally shook Reyes out of his dazed silence, if only to swallow the first evasive reply that found its way on his tongue.

_Give and take, Vidal. Give up something, maybe you have more than a snowball’s chance in hell of getting something in return._

“How did you guess?”

Ryder continued to examine the place with more interest than it deserved. “No one who keeps so little crap lying around ever had to hang on to stuff.”

“The way you did...?”

Ryder hesitated. “I was a military brat,” he said then. “I had a foot locker.”

Reyes had assumed that the twins had grown up in pampered safety on the Citadel. Once again, reality turned out to be more complicated than he’d expected.

But surely Ryder hadn’t traveled over ten light years to compare their childhood living arrangements. According to recent intel from Meridian, the human Pathfinder was supposed to remain there on medical leave, his ship dry-docked for repairs. That seemed to rule out leisure trips to a region of the cluster that was still beset by freebooters, rebels and other troublesome elements. Any surprise visit in an official capacity would have come with a team and a hardsuit. But here Ryder was, armorless and alone... and potentially still medically compromised in a way Reyes couldn’t see.

Why? Did some fucked-up noble sentiment require standing face to face when Ryder told him to place his amorous notions where the sun didn’t shine?

The uncertainty was too painful. He had to ask.

“Ryder, what are you doing here?”

The question came out sounding a lot less congenial than he’d intended. Ryder stiffened visibly at its tone. The beginning of a blush drained from his face, and he took a tentative step back toward the door.

“Look, if you want me to leave, just say it. I’m aware this place isn’t exactly public knowledge. If you don’t want me here, I understand.”

Reyes’s brow furrowed. Did Ryder think that he was _angry...?_

And then it hit him.

_Vidal, you’re an ass._

Keeping his cards close to his chest was not the way to play this. If he wasn’t such a selfish, paranoid prick, he would have realized that at once. Instead, he was holding out on someone he cared very much for. Someone who had _turned off his own brain_ to save him from ignominy and death. So what if Ryder only wanted to set the record straight before squashing his hopes? If ever he’d owed anyone the truth about his emotions — or the pleasure of wiping the floor with them — well, if this wasn’t it... what was?

“Scott, if you think that seeing you right now doesn’t make me the happiest man in Heleus, you’re gravely mistaken.”

Startled, Ryder looked to him, eyes widening.

And then he clearly just gave voice to what he was thinking, as if a switch had been flicked to enable his usual bullshit bypass.

“The letter. Did you mean it?”

“Yes.”

God only knew what that SAM-augmented vision saw in him, this time.

Eventually Ryder looked away. Eyes on his impeccably white sneakers, he rubbed at his forehead.

“I had a whole script prepared in my head,” he said. “With about ten different jokes lined up and everything. I guess the joke’s on me because now I can’t recall a single line.” He raised his head, a picture of discomfort if Reyes had ever seen one, yet still determined in that way that was impressive to witness and utterly disconcerting to find oneself the focus of. “But since you’re not about to throw me out... if you got the time, I could try to remember how to act like a sane person again?”

Kindness wasn’t something that came to Reyes naturally. But again, he owed it to Ryder to try. He gestured toward the set of armchairs and couch nearby.

“Would you like to start by sitting down? I’ll offer you a drink, though I’m afraid I’m all out of Mount Milgrom. The swill I have might offend your palate, but with SAM’s help, I’m almost certain it won’t kill you.”

A wan smile was his reward, the first he’d seen on Ryder since the one stolen by way of canine help on the farm.

.

.

Deposited in an armchair, a glass that contained ice and three fingers of high-proof alcohol in his hand, Ryder started to appear marginally less like he might bolt at the smallest hint. With some of his nervous energy fading, he seemed tired in a way that made Reyes worry how much of the hale image he projected was real.

And still he somehow managed to look a bit of self-assurance shy of ready for a holo interview, in those carefully fitted civvies that no doubt reflected calculated effort from the Initiative PR division’s part. As he sat on the couch — not close enough to presume, not far enough to appear distant — Reyes reflected sadly that a five-finger hairdo and a layer of dirty engine grease over nondescript work clothes was definitely not what he’d planned to wear for the occasion. He could only hope that his pose radiated enough confidence to make him appear more like the leader of the second most powerful Milky Way faction in Andromeda and less like he’d just finished a three-week gig as a grease monkey on a batarian freighter. At least his chemical shave was still holding... even if his haircut was not.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel unwelcome,” he said. “My only excuse is that I didn’t expect to see you. As a matter of fact, after not hearing from you, it was the last thing I expected.”

A little more formal than he would have liked, but... with how nervous Ryder still appeared, some polite formality didn’t seem misplaced.

“‘Emotional avoidance,’” Ryder said with a note that seemed to echo someone they both knew.

“Is that a quote?”

“Lexi on the way I handle personal issues. Or don’t.” With a self-conscious shrug, Ryder tossed back a generous mouthful from his drink, only to grow red in the face and start coughing against his fist.

Reyes wanted to kiss him so bad that it hurt.

 _God help me. I don’t know if I can do this._ He placed his own glass on the table. The last thing he needed right now was to compromise his self-control with alcohol.

“Did Dr. T’Perro clear you for this trip?”

He knew he shouldn’t have asked, not if he wanted to keep from sounding like he didn’t trust Ryder’s judgment. But he couldn’t help worrying. No one bounced back from death’s door without a lingering issue or three. Not even at twenty-two, genetically blessed and augmented to the point possible without the person in question starting to look like a cyborg.

Ryder threw him a glance, still watering a bit at the eyes.

“Are you kidding? She’ll kill me when I go back. In fact, I think a whole bunch of people will have to draw straws to decide who gets a shot at me first. And not just because of the... medical issues. I didn’t exactly ask for Tann’s approval before leaving.”

So, like Reyes had assumed, Ryder was on Kadara in breach of his contract.

He tried not to let himself grow too hopeful just because Ryder was answering his questions. After all, there were reasons journalists loved the young Pathfinder that went beyond how good he looked on camera.

What was it like, to live with so much of oneself open for everyone to see? It was hard even to imagine.

“I’m not sure whether to feel flattered or alarmed,” he said.

“Well, it is your fault, so maybe I’ll just point them all at you.” Ryder grew shifty-eyed and cleared his throat, as if he hadn’t intended to speak so openly, or for the tone to turn so light. “Anyway. The bottom line is, I didn’t come here with a plan. I was taking a shuttle for a spin to clear my head. Then suddenly I was on my way over and — even when I twisted Keema’s arm to find about this place, I was still lying to myself that I’d turn back any moment. In fact, I think I’ve been lying to myself about a whole lot of things, lately.” Eyes on his glass, Ryder blew out a breath. “I’m sorry that I surprised you.”

Reyes couldn’t help a soft laugh. “Don’t be. You always surprise me. Even when I know to expect you. I doubt that will ever change.”

He could tell that this time, the way Ryder blushed had nothing to do with alcohol.

For a second, he considered dialing it down. But — he’d cast his dice, writing the letter. Might as well follow through and make a complete fool out of himself while he still had the chance.

“So... can you now tell me what happened?” Ryder asked, almost hesitant. “When you stopped answering my letters.”

Another opportunity to prevaricate was foiled by way of more painful internal wrangling.

“With Farenth out of the way, I went after some of the Outcasts involved. I wanted revenge and took it too far. Pushed into a corner, my enemies joined forces with another gang of lowlifes I’ve lately antagonized.”

“The ones who wanted to swindle New Tuchanka?”

Reyes lifted his brows.

“I’m impressed. Should I call Crux and tell her that we have a leak?”

“You’re not the only one with contacts around here,” Ryder said, not without a trace of healthy self-satisfaction. “What happened then?”

“A hit squad succeeded in kidnapping one of my representatives. One with access to my identity and all of our emergency codes. I had to close my accounts and go to ground. We recovered our man before they could make him talk, but the rescue operation got... messy. Adik’s still in the hospital.”

Ryder looked around. “Yeah, I was wondering where she — wait.” He frowned. “Why was Adik there? You didn’t lead the rescue op yourself, did you?”

When Reyes didn’t bother to deny it, Ryder groaned. He put his glass away, leaned his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. _Again?”_

“The operative who got taken went through five days of hell because of me. What kind of loyalty can I expect if I don’t take personal responsibility for my closest associates? You of all people should know that.”

“Saving people is part of my job! Yours is to stay alive and make sure this planet doesn’t go to shit! You can’t do that if some trigger-happy freezer brain blows your head off while you’re out playing a hero!”

True, but... “Is that the true reason you’re yelling at me right now, _mi vida?”_

Whatever the translator made of the teasing endearment, for a moment, Reyes feared he’d gone too far. He’d wanted to fluster Ryder, not send him walking out in a discombobulated huff.

“Please stop,” Ryder pleaded, hands over his eyes. “There are things I need to say, and you’re making it harder for me to say them.”

_Ah._

Reyes smiled ruefully at his drink on the table. Who knew, very soon, he might need it. And the rest of the bottle to go with it.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I’m at your disposal.”

Hands clasped in front of him, Ryder concentrated on the view outside. Even without looking, Reyes could tell what he saw: the sky taking on the breathtaking colors of Kadara sunset and violet shadows spreading across the valley from the mountains. It felt like such a cliché to think that Ryder looked more stunning than any of it, but — given how hard Reyes suspected that the next few moments would be, he felt inclined to forgive himself for a little lack of poetic ingenuity.

“You’re a thug,” Ryder said.

After a pang of not entirely unexpected disappointment, Reyes gave voice to a morose chuckle.

“Yes, I believe we’ve already established that.”

“And a liar.”

“That is also true.”

The seemingly easy admission of guilt earned him a disapproving glower. But what had Ryder expected? People had used far worse language to call Reyes a criminal. Sometimes with their finger on a trigger.

“For a long time, I wanted to think that’s all you are,” Ryder continued, his tone still accusing. “It made things easy. Even I will stay away from an empty spot on a map if there’s a big enough dragon in it.”

Reyes, who knew that Ryder had taken on some rather large dragons over the past few months, finally had the good sense to hold his tongue.

Ryder’s scowl turned back outside.

“But then... I started to learn things about you. About what you’re doing on Kadara. How you’re trying to fix the mess Sloane left behind. Maybe you are a thug. But that’s not all you are. No one who’s in it just for themselves would spend so much effort to —”

“Stop,” Reyes said.

Ryder cast him a bewildered look.

“Scott. You don’t need to do this. In fact, I would prefer it if you didn’t.”

“And I would prefer to live off Blast-Ohs and pizza, but we don’t always get what we want. So shut up and listen.”

_Mother of God._

Reyes nodded, a little ashamed of how easily he’d forgotten his decision to accept his fate. Listening had to be the least it entailed, even if it felt like being stabbed through the chest.

Ryder continued.

“I know you like to put on that you’re just a businessman trying to get ahead. But the more I know, the more I start to think that’s just another fiction of yours. You care about the exiles. In your own way, you might care about them as much as I care about the Initiative. And I shouldn’t blame you for putting them first — not when I’m doing the same. I mean, I won’t go running to Tann about every little thing, but I suppose we both know that if there’s a real conflict of interest, I won’t sit on the fence.

“So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I shouldn’t have expected you to trust me. Not so soon, or with so much at stake. Don’t take this wrong, I haven’t forgiven you for what you did, or the way you did it. But I think I now understand _why_ you did it, a little. And for what it’s worth, I wish things had gone differently after I... found out. I still think I had every right to be angry. But I know now that you didn’t deserve some of the things I said.”

Reyes had long since accepted that he wasn’t the kind of figure that inspired confidence. Even those who liked him tended to assume that his loyalty waxed and waned with his profit margin. Of all the reasons he’d chosen to rule from the shadows, that inability to avoid suspicion was not the least. People needed to believe in their leader, not fear that said leader might abscond with the contents of the state treasury in their back pocket.

Understanding was not something he expected, let alone asked for. For Ryder to offer it now, _knowing..._

He couldn’t accept it. Hadn’t when he was still pretending to be a simple smuggler, and now it was even more impossible. Still, to know that it was there, his to take, the way he’d taken so many things he didn’t deserve —

_You brave, gorgeous, brilliant, foolish boy._

Then again, why exactly was he surprised? Ever since he’d first laid eyes on Ryder in Kralla’s Song, the kid had been nothing if not full of surprises. Stepping outside one’s own point of view at his age to the extent he’d just done should’ve felt like the least amazing thing about him.

“And... that’s it,” Ryder said, eyes on his laced fingers, self-conscious again. “That’s what I wanted to tell. Could you... say something?”

“I’m not sure I should,” Reyes said.

“Why?”

“Because it might be something you’re not ready to hear, _cariño.”_

Again, the endearment seemed to disconcert Ryder half out of his mind.

Reyes leaned closer. Not close enough to reach out and touch. But God, how he wanted to. He’d always thought that the expression about physically aching for someone was poetic license. Now he knew that he’d been wrong — and how holding back felt a bit like dying.

“Scott. You said it yourself. You don’t trust me. You haven’t forgiven me. If you need more time, I can wait.”

To his amazement, he realized that it was true.

_Oh, but you’re in deep now, aren’t you?_

Instead of looking relieved like he’d expected, Ryder scowled at him again.

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Believe me, treating you like a child is the last thing I want. But if I could seduce you and be done with this, I would already have done it.”

A rather disgruntled look reminded him that attempts at gut-wrenching honesty didn’t mesh too well with complacence. It was easy to tell that Ryder was far from indifferent, but Reyes should have known better than to draw attention to the fact, or insinuate that he thought Ryder would keel over with his skirts around his ears if he so much as winked.

He forced himself to sit back. Even that small increase of distance hurt.

“Don’t worry.” He chuckled. “I promise to be a perfect gentleman, for as long as you want.”

“And if I want that to continue indefinitely?”

The smile clung to Reyes’s face. “If it genuinely is what you prefer —”

He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. No way would it ever pass his throat without causing his fraying self-restraint to disintegrate. He would end up begging, and not begging was where he drew the line, no matter how honest it would have been.

For a moment, Ryder watched him without a word.

“Right,” he said then, took his glass from the table to empty it, and stood up.

“Wait —”

Reyes started to push to his feet, as well. Because somewhere along the line, he’d made a mistake. Why else would Ryder suddenly be leaving?

_Fine. So much for not begging._

And then he sank back as the Pathfinder stepped closer and leaned on top of him, hands braced both sides of him on the back of the couch. Under the whiskey, Reyes could smell a trace of ozone, like the air after a thunderstorm. Or shields getting zapped — the final warning to find cover. He was relatively certain Ryder wasn’t planning to warp him to atomic dust, but the way those cornflower-blue eyes glared at him, his lizard brain remained unconvinced.

“Know what? Screw your promises. And screw trust, for all I care,” Ryder said, and kissed him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the smut herein and the new E rating, you may thank the two porn fiends who beta-read this beast for me. Namely, Alessariel and BlueTeaParty. Oleander's One also helped :-) Thank you guys, as always this would be so much worse without you. And of course thank you for reading everyone, and for the comments and kudos, they really mean a lot to me, even more so when struggling with the last chapters of a fic.

One thing was for certain. Ryder hadn’t spent what little free time saving Heleus had allowed to practice the fine art of smooching.

“Scott,” Reyes tried to utter, but failed to restrain Ryder’s enthusiasm — or panic, or whatever it was that drove him to practically fall in Reyes’s lap and come at him like a _luchador_ making an attempt at a show wrestling move that happened to involve putting their mouths together. Still, the only thing Reyes would have traded it for was the same kiss without his neck being in danger of breaking.

What was a man to do? Shoving the love of his life away wasn’t an option. More so since he doubted it was all that easy, what with Ryder having weight, augmentations and SAM on his side. Yet something needed to be done. The awkward angle of Reyes’s back against the couch threatened to render him useless for further romantic endeavors.

Fortunately, there were other means than brute force to come out on top.

 _Come on. He’s kissing you like you’re a kett base in need of incendiary spring cleaning. Just... remind him that you two are on the same side, here._ Slowly, Reyes slid his hands under Ryder’s jacket. A gentle bite at a lower lip teased out a startled shudder. A swipe of his tongue had Ryder actually easing up enough to draw breath. The rest was simply a matter of using the long experience Reyes had with sex in cramped quarters to roll Ryder beneath him on the couch.

Finally, Ryder seemed to snap out of it. He blinked up at Reyes in surprise, as if he wasn’t sure how the hell he’d ended up on his back.

“What —”

“Scott, wait.”

Only after Ryder had swallowed and nodded, expecting for him to continue, Reyes realized he had not the slightest clue how.

“Reyes...?”

Slowly, he allowed his head to slump to Ryder’s chest. The silence that followed gave him more than enough time to notice every detail of the man beneath him.

Like all biotics, Ryder ran so warm that lying on top of him felt like hugging a living radiator. The scent coming off him — eezo, and standard-issue deodorant, and clean masculine sweat — seemed less funky than spending almost a whole day in a shuttle gave reason to expect. Perhaps he’d stopped by Keema for something more than just directions? Whatever the explanation, he smelled intoxicating — a state Reyes himself couldn’t brag, after the hours he’d spent toiling in the garage.

Inside Ryder’s chest, his heart hammered, so fast it betrayed his agitation, but steady and strong. _Alive._ Not lifeless on a stretcher, barely breathing. Or walking away with a scathing ‘I don’t give a shit’, spoken with the finality of a man who would rather shoot himself than come near Reyes again.

_He came back to me. He came back to me, and he kissed me._

Reyes had thought he knew who he was. He knew nothing. He was a leaf in the wind. A ship adrift in the Scourge. He was a third-rate poet because poetry was the only way to understand what the fuck he was feeling. He was —

Ringing.

He groaned and called up his VI, muffled against Ryder’s jacket collar.

“Who is it?”

“Evfra de Tershaav,” the genderless tones of his personal assistance suite informed him through his ear implant. “He threatens to declare the Collective envoy on Aya _persona non grata_ unless you accept the transmission.”

Reyes barely managed to keep from defiling his mother’s memory out loud.

“Do you need to take that?” murmured a voice close to his ear.

“Yes. Forgive me.” Still prone on Ryder, Reyes turned his head to the side so he could speak more easily, and pressed two fingers to his right ear to activate his private commlink.

“How may I —”

 _“What the flaming_ skkut, _Vidal? Not only do we have to pay through the nose for flying through your poxed system, the Initiative is paying less than we are? Has your brain rotted from power already? Have you forgotten who helped set you up? Who stood by you when all your Milky Way friends turned their back on you? Who defended your —”_

Well, at least it wasn’t like Reyes hadn’t expected this reaction. Which made dealing with it marginally easier, even if his wits weren’t at all where they should be — as demonstrated by the fact that he was still lying on Ryder like a beached deepsea creature. Definitely not the sexiest thing he’d ever done... but even so, he could tell that Ryder was hardly put off by the situation. The hard-on pressing into Reyes’s hip through their clothes was relatively difficult to misinterpret.

“I’m not alone,” he said when Evfra paused to draw breath in the middle of listing everything the angaran resistance had ever done for him. “Can this wait?”

_“Motherless cur! I will personally shove every credit down your throat!”_

Well, that was a no. Reyes considered his next words.

A bead of sweat trickled down his neck, brought on by Ryder’s intense body heat. Lower, his hand was starting a slow path up and down Ryder’s side. When he spoke again, he could sense the shiver his voice sent through the powerful body beneath him.

“Perhaps we can work out a deal.”

_“We will not pay more than the Initiative!”_

“Meet me halfway, and I guarantee you won’t.”

In the silence that followed, Reyes moved his head the small distance required to kiss the skin next to Ryder’s collar. The small gasp the touch elicited went straight to his head. Unable to help himself, he teased his tongue over the same spot.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to think straight for much longer.

 _“Well,”_ Evfra grumbled at last. _“What do you want?”_

The sweetest of words... although right now, honesty wouldn’t have improved the Collective’s interstellar relations. “Let me get back to you tomorrow,” Reyes murmured into Ryder’s neck.

_“Fine. But don’t keep me waiting too long. I might start thinking that the fighters I lended for defending Kadara are needed elsewhere.”_

The moment the link went dead, Reyes braced against the cushions and pushed up to crush Ryder’s mouth under his own.

With every cell in his being, he felt it. The fingers that tangled in his shirt. How Ryder strained off the couch to eliminate what little distance remained between them. In mere seconds, Reyes was fully hard. In not much longer, he was dragging that hardness against Ryder’s hip. Not the most eloquent way he’d communicated urgency to a partner, but was it ever sincere.

Part of him still remembered that this wasn’t how he’d imagined things would go. He was supposed to make love to Ryder with the patience and skill Ryder’s obvious inexperience called for, not subject him to a graceless rutting on a couch. But the arousal that mauled him left no room for such restraint. This was Scott. Beautiful, amazing Scott who inexplicably, miraculously seemed to want what he wanted — and badly, if that ragged breath and blind, open-mouthed kissing and straining hard-on were anything to go by. This wasn’t going to be sweet and patient. This was going to be about finishing what they had started all those months ago, an ocean of lies and a bottle of Mount Milgrom between them. Mind swimming in fantasies that somehow succeeded in being both painfully explicit and only half coherent, Reyes ripped open the smart-grip attachment on Ryder’s fly and pushed his hand inside.

No sooner than he’d wrapped his fingers around what he found there did the man under him go stiff in all the wrong ways.

Static electricity raced over Reyes’ skin, raising goosebumps. The smell of ozone thickened. When he opened his eyes, blue light was dancing across his field of vision.

_What the —_

He flung himself against the back of the couch.

Thinking wasn’t the easiest task with his cock throbbing in his pants and his blood pounding in his ears, but he tried. And little by little, he started to understand the extent of his mistake.

Ryder... hadn’t tried to be aggressive. He most definitely hadn’t asked to be pounded into a couch by a panting lover too far gone to distinguish a simple physical reaction from consent. Nervous and overcompensating, he’d made a move on Reyes the only way he knew how — without reservation, the same he did everything, even if that sometimes entailed the approximate subtlety of a charging rhinoceros. And like a sex-crazed maniac, Reyes had groped his way right into proving what he’d said about not being the man Ryder deserved. Being distracted by Evfra’s call hadn’t helped, but that hardly made for a good enough excuse, for a man of his experience.

He was still trying to formulate a coherent apology when an embarrassed voice interrupted his self-flagellation.

“Could we pretend that never happened?”

When Reyes looked down, the ominously beautiful blue swirl of dark energy was gone. Sprawled over and past the cushions, a disheveled and blushing young Pathfinder lay with a forearm thrown over his face, one foot on the floor. Made for angaran proportions, the couch was wider than the average human one, but it still wasn’t designed for two full-grown men to lie on it, especially when one of them was built like Ryder.

“What?” Reyes rasped. Obviously, he’d fucked up even worse than he’d imagined. What else could explain that Ryder wished not only to stop what they’d been doing, but wipe it out of existence altogether?

Ryder’s blush deepened to rival the setting sun.

“Well, the truth is, I've never, um... gone all the way. With anyone. I think I got too into it too fast and... shit. I’m sorry. Could we try again? Please? Without the part where I panic like a teenager and nearly fry us both?”

_...oh._

Reyes had to take a minute to process both the knowledge that Ryder was indeed just as inexperienced as he’d suspected and the sheer ludicrousness of everything else he’d just heard.

“Scott,” he said, as gently as he could. Which wasn’t all that gentle, but — really, what the hell? “I will make love to you. As fast or slow as you want. Or I will do nothing, if that is what you prefer. I want you very much, so I may be a little hard of hearing. But if you ever again apologize for letting me know that I should stop, I may have to throw myself out of a very high window.”

Ryder lifted the arm from his eyes and blinked at him.

Then the cushions tilted. Suddenly, their faces were only a handspan apart again, with Ryder sitting up and reaching past Reyes to grasp the back of the couch for support.

“I started it,” Ryder pointed out, clearly bewildered. “In case you didn’t notice.”

“And because of that, you need to lie back and think of the Initiative no matter what happens?”

It occurred to Reyes that a person, rather than personality, might have been responsible for the uncharacteristic hint of anxiety he sensed from Ryder. How unfortunate that any such someone was most likely centuries dead by now, unavailable for an unsolicited encounter with a faceless figure and a set of brass knuckles in an abandoned warehouse.

For a moment more, Ryder watched him with a baffled expression.

“Okay,” he said, then. “I’ll let you know if I’m going to freak out. Can’t be more embarrassing than letting it happen.”

“Thank you.”

“But... you do want to try again. Right...?”

The blush on Ryder seemed to be going nowhere. Behind him, the gold and pink sky was deepening to red and purple.

“As in, now?” he soldiered on. “I mean — I lied. I did come here with a plan. It included a part where I use my manly wiles to seduce the King of Kadara. So, if it’s all the same to you...” He winced. “Sheesh. Did I just say that? Wow. I really am hopeless.”

Unable to speak for once, Reyes brushed his fingers over the still youthful growth of beard on Ryder’s jaw. Expressive as always, the eyes above searched his face, a little worried if he wasn’t mistaken. As if he could ever have said no. Still, after what had just happened —

“Are you sure?” he asked softly. “There must be a reason you’ve waited this long.”

Again, that thoughtful look. Followed by a crooked smile that made Reyes’s heart skip a beat or two. “Well, I was kind of starting to think of posting a classified. Three rounds of interviews? Maybe trial by combat? You know, last man standing gets the princess and half the cluster. I seem to recall that was standard procedure, once upon a time. Okay, I think that joke just earned to be airlocked.”

Reyes laughed.

_What in two galaxies have I done to deserve this man?_

Perhaps one day Ryder would trust him enough not to avoid such questions. Until then, being deflected with humor rather than an angry retort would have to do. Reyes made his tone a little teasing.

“Does this plan of yours require me to take a shower? I’m filthy.”

It was the God’s own truth. He stank. And the stains all over him could very well be mildly toxic.

Ryder shrugged.

“I don’t mind,” he said, failed to prevent his eyes from running all over Reyes and went redder again.

 _Well, well._ Reyes insinuated his free hand to the small of Ryder’s back, above a certain eye-catching curve of anatomy. A shamelessly heavy-lidded gaze and a deepening of his voice ensured the continuation of Ryder’s flustered state.

“And here I wanted to take you someplace romantic. A nice suit and a bottle of red, dancing in moonlight — but you, _bizcocho,_ would rather have me looking like a filthy two-credit wrench jockey who barely knows what to do with soap and water. Should I leave my boots on? Spill beer on my clothes to complete the image?”

“Hey, now,” Ryder sputtered. “It’s just — it’s a good look on you, asshole.”

“Such things you say, Pathfinder. I might start thinking that you like me.”

“I do like you. If that’s something you want to avoid, maybe you should stop being all — great and trying to save my life and... whatever.”

By now, Reyes could have wrestled an eiroch bare handed.

He was liked. By the best man he knew.

“I suppose I have my moments,” he breathed and started tilting forward, eyes closing.

Before their lips could touch, however, a hand on his chest brought him to a halt. “Wait,” Ryder said. “You gotta promise me one thing, first.”

_I thought I was supposed to lay off the promises?_

“Anything.”

Ryder exhaled and pointed his absurdly blue eyes skyward.

“Okay, so. When I turn out to be bad at this. Like, really, really bad? So bad you want to quantum shift back to the Milky Way so you never have to come near me again? Please don’t tell me.”

Laughing, Reyes pulled the Pathfinder to him.

.

.

He had always suspected that he would meet his end in some violent fashion. A bullet from a rival’s gun, or poison in his food. Getting torn apart by wild adhi in an Elaaden arena. Or shot out of the sky while flying.

He’d never considered that death might find him by way of thwarted arousal.

He wanted to beg. He wanted to pray. He wanted to hold Ryder down and start grinding. But he was doing none of those things, because he was no longer a slobbering neanderthal. Hands chastely above the waist, he kept kissing Ryder with every bit of skill he’d picked up along the way and suffered well-deserved flames of hell as Ryder kissed him back and mapped his back and arms and neck with fingers so slow and careful it left him shaking with the effort of holding back.

After what seemed like a small eternity but was more likely about five minutes, Ryder started tugging at the hem of his shirt. And... surely the need to restrain himself did not extend to keeping from offering something Ryder might simply be too shy to ask?

“Want me to take it off?”

Biting his kiss-swollen lower lip (and exactly how unfair was _that),_ Ryder nodded.

Any other day, Reyes would have made a small show of it. Now he just sat up, pulled off his t-shirt and threw it away. Something fragile toppled from the table, but as long as the house itself didn’t tumble off the mountain, Reyes wasn’t going to give a shit.

“Wow.” Ryder appeared a little awestruck. “You’re —”

The sentence trailed off before it really even started.

He was... what? Vanity wanted to know, but it seemed that Ryder had passed the stage of easy banter, and since that was definitely a step in the right direction, Reyes decided that he could live with the uncertainty.

“You leave me at a disadvantage, Pathfinder.”

“Huh? I — oh.” As if he’d really offended somehow, Ryder started to struggle out of his jacket, awkwardly thanks to lying on his back with someone sitting on his loins. “Piece of —”

At last, the jacket was off, incredibly still in one piece, and the shirt beneath followed. A set of Alliance dog tags fell to lie against the hair that dusted Ryder’s chest, glinting in the last rays of the sun. Reyes swallowed, his mouth suddenly gone dry for more reasons than the strapping, half-naked young man between his legs.

He knew exactly how those things would sway from Ryder’s neck when he was fucked from behind.

“Beautiful. I want to be inside you,” he blurted, because that was how his mouth worked when his brain short-circuited from too much hotness. And — _fuck._ What the hell was wrong with him? That kind of shit was _not_ in line with the attentive first lover act he was striving to adopt. Sure enough, Ryder’s eyes widened, adding shock to the self-consciousness he clearly already felt under the blatant staring.

A body like that deserved to be stared at, and praised with words and hands in a half dozen different positions. But this was not a skin flick with some nameless, chiseled soldier in it. If Reyes couldn’t control the filthy bullshit that came out of his mouth... how the hell was he going to control the rest?

“I’m sorry. I’m a little overwhelmed,” he said, because it was true, and leaned back to return to kissing.

No amount of self-restraint, however, could have kept him from running his hands all over what that discarded shirt had revealed.

Was it bending his word, to bring his weight down on Ryder and roll their hips together? The friction of Ryder’s trapped erection against his own almost turned his mind inside out. Ryder gave a stuttering sound against his mouth, the trace of thunderstorm in the air growing stronger again. _Can you feel what you’re doing to me, love?_ Reyes nearly bit his tongue bloody to keep from babbling more inanities.

_I can’t. I can’t hold back. I’m going to lose it, I’m going to —_

“Oh, no,” Ryder gritted out. “Shit, shit...!”

Without warning, his hand shot between them, to squeeze his hard-on through his clothes.

When Reyes realized what was happening, it was already too late. All he could do was stare and resist the urge to push his hand down his pants and chase Ryder’s release with his own.

Once the stifled moans and shuddering had ceased, Ryder relaxed back against the cushions and blinked at the ceiling. Around them, the shimmer of artificial lighting was beginning to compensate for the last red glow of the sun that had sunk behind the horizon. So close to the equator, it wouldn’t take long until dark.

“Could you please do me a favor?” Ryder said. “Kill me.”

Despite his physical discomfort, Reyes could not help smiling. “The last I checked, getting off does not count as a capital offense.”

Ryder dug his palms into his eyes and groaned. “Yeah, but jizzing my shorts? I want to shoot myself into the fucking sun.”

Reyes chuckled and brushed aside hair that had fallen across Ryder’s brow. He could only hope that the strands hanging over his own forehead lent him a rakish rather than a grubby air.

“If you wish to be punished, I have much better ideas. Aside from which, I seem to recall saying we can go as fast or slow as you want. Since I failed to set a lower limit, ten seconds is allowed.”

Ryder lowered his hands to reveal a pair of baby blues that pierced into Reyes like he’d just confessed to kicking puppies for a hobby.

Then he started snorting with helpless laughter.

“Go fuck yourself,” he wheezed.

Mission ‘cheer up a mortified virgin’ accomplished, Reyes did his best to kiss away the rest of Ryder’s pointless concerns. Unbelievably, he still succeeded in betraying little of the torture he was going through — except for the parts that were simply not under his control.

“An interesting proposal,” he murmured against the corner of Ryder’s mouth. “Much as I wish to please you, anatomical realities intervene.”

“Yeah, well.” Ryder gave a somewhat breathless laugh. “From what you said, I get the impression catcher’s not your favorite position, anyway.”

How in God’s name was Ryder able to remember the nonsense that had come out of his mouth? Did it have something to do with SAM? It occurred to Reyes they had an audience — and an avid one, if what he’d observed of the AI’s curiosity toward human behavior was anything to go by. How fortunate that he’d never been too nervous about putting on a performance.

Asking whether SAM was enjoying the show might have been a little much, though.

“For you, I could make an exception,” he said. Again, it was true. His need to stay in control and on top of things did include sex, but he had a bad feeling that whatever Ryder might realistically be expected to ask for, he would end up not only saying yes, but enjoying it.

“But you don’t have to,” Ryder said. “I mean... truth be told... I’ve been thinking the same. A lot. Too much, probably. So, maybe we could —” He swallowed, flushed face and earnest eyes only a breath away. “Please...?”

When Reyes caught on, his IQ plummeted by at least two thirds.

“You do understand —” He cleared his throat and tried again. He would do this right, god dammit. “You do understand this is not a competition, _cariño?_ You don’t need to impress me.” _Because you already have. More than anyone else I’ve ever met._

The look on Ryder turned defiant. Pathfinder bravado, ladies and gentlemen.

“It’s not gonna hurt,” he said.

By now, Reyes was trying to keep his intellect from flatlining. “How in the world do you know that if you’ve never done it before?”

Definitely defiant, now.

“I haven’t had sex with anyone. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had sex at all.”

Thanks to no longer being able to produce an intelligible sound to save his life, Reyes failed to respond to that piece of mind-boggling information. Some of Ryder’s defiance made way for uncertainty.

“Of course, if you don’t want — I mean, I wasn’t trying to —”

Reyes put an end to the unnecessary backpedaling by kissing Ryder so thoroughly that it left them both gasping for air.

“The bed. Now,” he got out, and shoved off the couch.

.

.

Christ. Even Ryder’s underwear had the damn logo on it.

Reyes half expected to see a brand on Ryder’s shoulder, marking him the property of the Andromeda Initiative. Instead, softly blooming ambient light revealed a sparse web of scars on that otherwise unmarked skin — some of them the barely discernible telltale lines of a muscle weave installation, others more recent and less benign.

Reyes brushed a thumb across the letters he’d spotted on the waistband of Ryder’s shorts.

“You were hurt. When taking Meridian?”

“A little.” Ryder leaned back on his elbows, pants abandoned around his knees.

“This was not little.” Reyes ran his fingers up Ryder’s side, to a fresh pink scar cut right where allowance for movement required a more vulnerable spot in a military hardsuit. Such marks, left by hasty application of medi-gel, could be treated away. All it took was a series of visits to a medbay over a few days. After Ryder saved the almost 20,000 sleepers on the Hyperion from a fate worse than death... had Tann even allowed him a proper vacation? Or had the bloodless bastard simply kept squeezing for more?

Something terrible in Reyes wanted to lock Ryder somewhere safe and throw away the key.

“I heal fast,” Ryder said, as if that justified everything.

“And the one who did this...?”

“Dead.”

“I’m glad,” Reyes said and bent to replace his fingers with his tongue. With a muffled sound, Ryder fell back on the bed.

Beneath the slightly damaged shorts that soon joined the fate of Ryder’s ship pants around his knees, he was already back to half-hard. And hell, if he wasn’t cast in the same mold all over — perfect enough to take a picture of and use for propaganda. Or to be serviced by a man who didn’t in fact perform such favors too often.

At the last possible moment, Reyes stopped.

“May I?” he asked, so close he sensed the ghost of his own breath against Ryder’s erection. The way it perked up further even at that gentle brush of air was mesmerizing.

“Oh, I dunno,” Ryder managed, one last weak but valiant attempt at cheeky confidence. “You know what they say about —”

The rest was lost in a somewhat comical whine when Reyes tongued a wet stripe up his shaft and took it in his mouth. Two strokes in, a strong hand twisted in Reyes’s hair. Normally, the pain would have been a turn-off. Now it served as much needed distraction from the sounds Ryder was making.

 _No one else has done this to him._ In fact, whatever Reyes did... he was likely to be the first. He was sure he deserved no pats on the back for how much the thought turned him on, but that did not change how he felt.

Once the object of his attentions was rock hard again — a task that didn’t take all that long to achieve — Reyes pulled away and negotiated what remained of Ryder’s clothes. Sneakers and socks, pants and shorts followed one another across the floor until, blessedly, only skin remained. More than a little dazed by the sight of the naked Pathfinder on his bed, Reyes stood on his knees between Ryder’s legs and fished in his pocket for a small foil wrapper he’d picked from the nightstand on the way. God and Ryder alone knew how he looked. Probably like he’d been drugged. Or whacked across the head with a krogan hammer.

The wrapper hanging from his mouth, he opened his belt and fly and shoved his pants to his thighs. Then, like a damn pornstar, he tore the wrapper of liquid prophylactic open with his teeth.

Slick crackled between hand and hard flesh. He would’ve taken longer at it, to savor the look on Ryder’s face, but the touch of his own fingers nearly had him biting off his tongue.

_God. If ever have I done anything acceptable unto you in this life. Please let me last more than five seconds._

When he leaned back down, he vaguely realized that while he’d only joked about leaving his boots on, he was in fact still wearing them.

Ryder would never know how close he came to just shoving in like some beast. Nothing could be more important than the borderline painful ache in his loins, nothing. But at the last moment, he regained his senses. _Too fast. Too fucking fast._ If he screwed this up... if he allowed Ryder’s first time to hurt just because an overdeveloped can-do attitude had tricked the fool to bite off more than he could chew...

 _“La puta que me parió,”_ he groaned, let go of himself and felt his way between Ryder’s legs. The startled gasp the move evoked reminded him of how surprising it had been, half a lifetime ago, to sense someone else’s hand in places only he himself had so far ever touched.

One slick finger teased at the entrance. With pressure applied, it slid inside. Concentrating to the extent he was able, Reyes looked for signs of pain, but Ryder just made a needy sound deep in his throat, head tilting back. At the second finger, he hissed and arched his spine, but his hard-on showed no signs of flagging. _He’s... enjoying this?_ Out of disbelief rather than necessity, Reyes coaxed a third digit past the ring of muscle. In it went, and Ryder keened, precum leaking all over, tension coiling beneath his surface as if he was going to... come again from having Reyes’s fingers inside him?

_Jesus Christ —_

Three slippery fingers slid out, to be replaced with the blunt head of a throbbing prick. And what god or angel had heard a despairing top’s blasphemous plea, Reyes couldn’t have said, but by way of some miracle, he didn’t spill the instant he felt himself starting to go in. _Slow, you monster, take it slow_ — and he did, his brain nearly melting from the almost-too-hot grip that closed around him.

Brave words of being able to take it notwithstanding, it was still tight enough to make him see stars. Hands fisting in the sheets, he groaned and begged his way through every exquisite, excruciating centimeter, and when it was over — his cock hilted, the buckle of his belt pressed against Ryder’s arse — his head swum like he’d mainlined ten shots of tequila.

Who had turned up the heat until sweat was running down his spine? Beneath him, Ryder panted like he’d raced up a hill, every muscle in relief, legs wrapped around Reyes’s waist and fingers gripping his wrists so hard it would leave bruises.

 _Please, don’t let it hurt more than it has to._ No way in hell would Reyes be able to hold back once he even twitched.

“It’s —” Ryder licked his mouth. Licked again. Eyes closed, like he was trying to make sense of what he felt. “It’s different than I’m —”

 _“Mi alma. Mi vida. Mi —”_ Reyes bit his lip to stop babbling, so hard he tasted blood.

He was ruined.

“Reyes.”

 _“Sí. Soy —”_ English didn’t quite seem to come to him, any more. “I’m yours. If you’ll have me.”

One heart, stolen.

This damn _gallo._ Who, without even trying, had conned the conman.

Well, whatever Ryder wanted... he was welcome to it. Whether that meant destroying Reyes with a few well-chosen words or taking him up on his offer. It was out of Reyes’s hands, now. Had, perhaps, been from the moment he’d first spied a young Pathfinder from the shadows of a seedy bar, a chivalrous vision straight out of a world he’d thought no longer existed.

One minute. For a single minute of honest fucking before Reyes spilled his brains out, the devil could have his soul. Provided that a devil of some kind had bothered to follow them through dark space, of course. And that his soul was still worth the bargain.

One minute. That was all he asked for.

Sometimes, one minute was all it took to change a man’s life.


	10. Chapter 10

Daybreak found him pacing on a balcony, negotiating over QEC-linked comm for mining rights on two moons in exchange for reduced cost of passage through Collective-controlled space. Twenty-five minutes of physical and verbal back and forth saw a deal reached and a friendship restored.

“Pleasure as always.”

 _“Shove it, Vidal,”_ Evfra rumbled through the commlink. _“You’re a_ parshvaan, _and a seven-tongued one. When you come to Aya, I shall break_ t’kihut _with you.”_

Reyes had no idea what either _parshvaan_ or _t’kihut_ stood for, and neither did his translator. For all he knew, they could be some kind of kett. However, Evfra’s tone gave reason to hope he would not end up shot on his next visit to Aya, so he refrained from asking.

After getting what he wanted, he smoked a cigarette (real tobacco for a change, to celebrate the occasion) and watched the amber sunrise paint its way through the mist that lingered in the valley, between craggy mountains.

People tended to dislike having to pay for something they were used to getting for free. The people of Heleus had proved no exception, at being informed of the new charges for passing through Govorkam. The numbers didn’t in fact matter that much. The need to pay was insult enough. In anticipation of the reaction, Reyes had decided to set the toll rates too high and then restore goodwill (and possibly reap more benefits) by letting everyone involved negotiate better terms. And so far, it had all gone the way he’d hoped. Credits were flowing, he’d only had a gun pointed at him once or twice — how was that for howling success?

Never in two million light years would he have imagined that his scheme would end up overturning his love life, however.

After ignoring a message from Keema that boiled down to ‘you can thank me by telling me everything in as much steamy detail as possible,’ he discarded his spent cigarette and returned inside, where early sunlight was making its way across the room.

In the room, there was a bed.

In the bed slept a man.

It wasn’t like Reyes could have forgotten, but somehow he still managed to feel flummoxed. And not just because he’d never brought anyone to his hideout before, or because he rarely spent the night with his partners, or even because —  despite every salacious image the sight stirred in recent memory — it was the knowledge of how unconditionally right it had felt to wake up next to the Pathfinder that shook him the most.

Something in him wanted to turn tail and run as far and fast as he could.

Instead, he tossed his jacket on a chair nearby and walked barefoot to the kitchen.

Once the smell of coffee started spreading its siren call, rustling of sheets from the bed indicated signs of life. Reyes filled a mug and made his way to where his naked guest lay face down on the mattress, covered in bed linens up to the waist, head planted in a pillow, dark hair sticking any which way.

As much as he enjoyed the view, Reyes’s need to make sure he hadn’t fucked Ryder into brain damage soon grew too urgent to ignore.

“Kadara to Pathfinder?”

At first, only silence replied.

“My butt hurts,” came a muffled answer from the pillow, then. “And I blame you.”

Somehow, Reyes kept from bursting out laughing. An unusual way to start a conversation after making love for the first time, for sure — but then, he was beginning to understand that with Ryder, unusual was going to be the norm.

“I hate to point this out, _pastelito,_ but you asked for it. Several times.”

Was he mistaken, or did the ear he could see sticking out from between the pillow and Ryder’s hair turn bright pink?

“I brought coffee,” Reyes said. “Milk and sugar, right?”

For a moment more, nothing continued to happen.

“You’re partially forgiven,” mumbled the voice from the pillow at last.

“You’re a hard man to please, Ryder.” Reyes placed the the mug on the nightstand and started back toward the kitchen. “Perhaps some carbohydrates and protein will see me all the way to unconditionally pardoned —”

“Wait.”

“Yes?” Reyes turned back, pathetically hopeful.

A hand reached in his direction. Unthinking, he stepped closer and touched it — and huffed in surprise as he was pulled into the bed. A roll and a flurry of sheets, and he was on his back with a sleep-warm, naked young man on top of him. Strong thighs straddled his hips, as if to eliminate any lingering chance of escape. Some close-combat maneuver, no doubt — though he wasn’t about to complain.

It seemed almost too much to ask, given how recently Ryder had had enrolled in the school of getting it on, but the situation certainly had the makings of a terrific crash course.

“Or... perhaps we can think of some other way for me to atone for my sins,” Reyes breathed. “Good morning, my —”

Ryder leaned down to shut him up with a kiss.

Not something he was going to complain about any time soon, either.

By the time the Pathfinder resurfaced, they were both breathing harder. A telltale hardness down between them confirmed that Ryder was very much in the same mood as Reyes himself. But just when things were about to turn gloriously hot and heavy, Ryder’s boldness seemed to waver — or that was what Reyes gathered from the way he pulled back and blinked, as if he’d realized that he’d just woken up in a strange bed, and wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

Reyes controlled his libido and smiled up at his hesitating lover.

“Your lack of morning breath amazes me.”

“Oh.” Startled out of whatever circle of doubt he’d been spiraling down on, Ryder seemed to study his face, as if looking or something. “I went to the bathroom. Where were you?”

“Working.”

One judgmental eyebrow rose. “Managing your criminal empire, you mean?”

Reyes chuckled, fingers brushing lightly up and down Ryder’s thighs. God, what a sight. He wouldn’t have minded waking up to it every morning. (Some others might, though, due to how it would mean he would never again get any work done.)

“Not everything I do is against the law, Pathfinder. I’m starting to believe that the moral ambiguity of some of my operations turns you on.”

Ryder snorted in a rather unconvincing ‘dream on’ sort of way. To his relief, Reyes felt him starting to relax.

“I was beginning to think I broke you,” Reyes went on. “Do you even know what time it is? You almost seemed to disappear from this plane of existence, rather than just fall asleep. Without SAM there to tell me it’s normal, I might have panicked.”

He was only half joking. The way Ryder had passed out after sex, Reyes had feared he’d aggravated some heretofore undetected brain injury severely enough to put him in a coma.

“Well, you wore me out,” Ryder grumbled.

“I wore you out? Flattering, considering my greater age.”

“Thirty-four’s not that old. It barely counts as elderly.”

That was... a suspiciously accurate number. Reyes had made sure his files on the Nexus were wiped in a way that looked like Scourge damage. So how...?

“Your stasis pod,” Ryder said, as if reading the question out of his body language. There was a lot of body language going on, given the circumstances. “SAM found it. The wakeup logs include date of birth.”

Reyes made a mental note to find out what else a stasis pod wakeup log contained. Later. Right now, more urgent things demanded his attention. Such as how, if Ryder continued to sit on him like this, _he_ would be in danger of brain injury.

“Clever,” he said and pitched his voice lower, hands still resting on Ryder’s thighs. “Now... I hate to cut this short, _cariño,_ but are you planning to do something with me? I don’t know how much more I can take of looking at you like this without turning into a caveman. We can also simply have breakfast, if you’d like.”

Ryder swallowed. His gaze flicked down Reyes’s naked upper body.

“Well, I wasn’t lying when I said I’m sore. But I guess I could —” The pink on Ryder’s cheeks intensified. “Uh, suck you off...?”

_Thank you, God._

Ryder’s tone turned husky. “Just so you know, I won’t have any idea what I’m doing.”

“You really need to take a few lessons on how to sell yourself, my dear Pathfinder,” Reyes rumbled, laughing.

“Well, can’t blame me for what happens if I warn you first,” Ryder said and started crawling his way lower.

Reyes couldn’t help it. The expectation had him going achingly hard in a heartbeat. And still he couldn’t stop yammering.

“I’m starting to worry. What exactly are you planning? Do you know what this thing you’re about to do entails?”

“In theory,” Ryder said as he hooked his fingers under the waistband of Reyes’s pants. “You need to tell me if I do something terrible.”

For a split second, Reyes did in fact worry a bit, reminded as he was of Ryder’s initial forceful attitude toward kissing — already greatly improved, he was glad to say. As much as he enjoyed being at the receiving end of this particular service, whether afforded by an amateur or a consummate artist, he didn’t look forward to being mauled by too much youthful enthusiasm.

“Perhaps if you described what you’re about to do, I could offer pointers,” his fool mouth babbled. “The more detailed, the better.”

Down went his pants, around his thighs. “Getting you to shut up seems like a good first goal,” Ryder murmured, a bit distracted.

“I regret to inform you that a lot of people have tried without — _ay dios mio,”_ Reyes wheezed and squirmed up on his elbow, wincing. Blessedly, not out of pain.

God, that this should become of a man who throughout his active sex life had prided himself on his level of control. A single tentative curl of tongue at a sensitive spot on his cock, and he was about to go to pieces.

The herald of his undoing had the temerity to chuckle.

“You were saying...?”

He had no idea what the hell he’d been saying. Ever.

“God, yes, _mi vida, mi am—”_

Fuck, it was getting worse. Somehow he kept from blurting out the L-bomb, and was rewarded with increasingly confident strokes of a wet tongue, followed by soft lips kissing his tip and then seeking to accommodate the rest. Slowly enough to melt his brain, the curious, fever-hot mouth pushed down to envelop his aching girth.

Overachiever to the last, Ryder pressed on until he gagged. And then did it again. Only after the third time, he seemed to admit that deep-throating wasn’t going to happen on his first ever attempt at giving head, and settled for other sorts of experimentation. The pointers Reyes had proposed to offer came out as a string of bilingual nonsense, which, after a minute or two, degenerated into grunts and moans and providing non-verbal encouragement by twining his fingers in Ryder’s hair.

To his mortification, Reyes realized he wouldn’t last for very long. Even had it all been about as subtle as a punch in the face, that wouldn’t have kept him from coming, thanks to who was doing it. Since Ryder’s technique counted as more than adequate for a beginner, Reyes ended up embarrassing himself even faster.

“I — you — Scott, I’m going to —”

The madman he loved more than life itself refused to pull away, forcing him to live through the mind-bending plot twist of spilling down his throat.

For a moment, it seemed like Kadara would have to learn to fend for itself, due to its leader having become a gibbering half-wit. Once the problem turned out to be of a temporary sort, Reyes pulled an extremely aroused Pathfinder from between his legs, to kiss his own taste from his mouth and bring him off in about a dozen spit and precum slicked strokes.

And then he dreamed of the impossible.

“So, this fear of yours that you might be bad at sex,” he said once his brain had deliquefied. “Are you interested in my opinion?”

It took a moment before Ryder replied. Since the wait involved him lying glued to Reyes’ side from head to toe, naked and boneless and within reach for a hand to stroke up and down his marvelously formed back, Reyes didn’t find it in himself to mind too much.

“Sure,” Ryder said, then. “Why not? I mean, you’ve only got like twenty years more experience than me, what could possibly go wrong?”

The laugh that bubbled out of Reyes sounded rather besotted, to his own ears at least. “Well, I was going to say that you’re amazing and have nothing to worry about. But if you would prefer for me to keep it to myself —”

“Oh. I’ll take amazing.”

Reyes smiled into the messy hair on his face. “Amazing, breathtaking, one of a kind —”

Ryder let out a choked sound that landed somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “Well, you’re pretty amazing yourself.”

“Why, thank you.”

“In bed, I mean.”

“Yes, in bed. That is what we were talking about, no?”

Reyes was relatively certain that his normal self would have considered his current state of mind somewhat ludicrous. He was inclined to tell his normal self to go hang.

“I gotta warn you, though,” Ryder said. “You’ve only mostly seen my grownup one tenth so far. The remaining nine tenths are all dorks.”

“I look forward to getting to know them.”

“Famous last —”

Ryder’s stomach rumbled. Loudly.

“Sorry. Biotic metabolism,” he groaned into Reyes’s shoulder once he’d stopped cringing.

Reyes was still trying to suppress his laughter. “I have Blast-Ohs.”

“Really?”

“Just the one box. But you’re welcome to it.” For whatever reason, the disgusting things had been included in the shipment of groceries he’d brought from the port.

“Awesome!” Going by how Ryder rolled away and practically jumped out of the bed, Reyes had met his match in terms of a certain hungry young biotic’s affections.

A while later, he was treated to the surreal vision of a tousled, shirtless Pathfinder sitting at his dinner table, putting down vast quantities of coffee, fruit juice, toasted bread, scrambled vat-grown eggs and overly sweet cereal in a variety of unnatural colors and tastes straight out of a lab. Since Ryder’s pants were still in the laundry, he’d pulled on a pair of sweatpants from Reyes’s closet. Their snug fit on his bum went a long way toward restoring Reyes’s half-lost faith in the human form being a reflection of divinity.

Even with post-coital euphoria fading, harebrained dreams lingered. Of conversations and compromises. Of painful introductions — such as they could be, since only one of them had the one relative left. Of birthdays and anniversaries, sunrises and sunsets. Of brushing teeth together and sharing an endless string of more breakfasts. And of so much sex that it would become familiar and safe.

Reyes wanted it all. So badly that he was even willing to take the inevitable nagging about his morals and habits, the hell of his own jealousy, and the fear of losing everything.

He was very much aware that even if Ryder’s thoughts traveled along similar lines — of which he had no proof whatsoever — it was all impossible. Far more likely that they’d soon enough end up back on different sides of the fence.

Everything about the situation had heartbreak written all over it. And still he couldn’t help hoping.

“I need to visit the port in the afternoon,” he said after finishing his egg scramble and oatmeal. “They’re going to revive Adik today.”

“Is she going to be alright?”

“She’s tough. She’ll pull through.”

“She better. Someone’s gotta look after —”

Reyes’s omni-tool chimed. _Crux, urgent,_ read the caller’s handle. He sighed.

“Forgive me,” he said and went outside.

In the ten minutes the call took, Ryder had finished his breakfast and was drinking what had to be his fourth cup of coffee, eyes on the glowing haptic interface that hovered over his bare arm. The latest and greatest model, of course, give or take six hundred years. Reyes leaned his hip to a counter nearby, arms folded on his chest. The spot afforded him an excellent view of Ryder’s muscular shoulders and back — and neck, where a love bite from last night bloomed. Would that mark even have time to start fading before...?

“How come your comm’s not making a racket every five minutes?” Reyes asked.

“That would be because it’s off,” Ryder said without turning.

“Completely?”

“Yeah. You should give it a try. It’s a liberating experience,” Ryder said and did something on his omni-tool. “Oh, wow. Only one hundred and thirty-three new messages. Must have been a quiet day in Heleus.”

“They’ve got to be worried. Or — is SAM —”

“Telling them to mind their own business, yeah.” Ryder closed his omni-tool and twisted in his chair to look at Reyes, one brawny arm draped over its back.

That smile. Surely no one smiled that way if they planned to get up and go with a lovesick sap of a man left behind like last night’s sordid dream? Again, Reyes tried to rein in his hope. If this was all he ever got, he had to make sure he wouldn’t —

Oh, hell. Who was he kidding? If this was all he’d ever get, he’d go to fucking pieces. Keema would have to scrape him off the floor like goddamn human pudding. He would need a full-body mental prosthesis to go about moving and talking like a man.

“They’ll want you back, I suppose,” he said. Try as he might, he couldn’t make it sound entirely casual.

“Not for two or three days,” Ryder said. “I’m on sick leave, remember?”

Reyes blinked. The expression in Ryder’s Initiative-blue eyes appeared so innocent that, with anyone else, he would have suspected shenanigans.

“You’d... stay?”

Ryder shrugged. “Well, with Adik gone, you need someone to take care of you, right? Playing bodyguard happens to be something I’m pretty good at. Also, the place is a mess, I mean —” Ryder shook his head at the absolutely scot-free apartment and whistled. “Clearly you got no idea how to look after yourself.”

Reyes fought to wrap his head around the unexpected turn of discussion.

Three days. He’d been wagering on a few hours. Three days was an eternity. In three days, he’d have time to figure it all out. To find out if Ryder felt the —

A crooked smile started at one corner of his mouth.

“I must warn you,” he said. “I work. A lot. Twelve, sixteen hours a day. Around the clock on stims when I have to.”

Ryder raised a brow. “So? I mean, I recently discovered SAM has access to every cartoon network show they ever made back home. If you don’t work sixteen hours, I’ll barely have a reason to start.”

“I drink too much. And I smoke like a chimney.” Well, not strictly true. A blend of angaran weed and what little tobacco they could grow now just wasn’t the same. But Reyes missed the habit and knew that once the supply was there, he would most likely go back to it.

“Yeah, well,” Ryder said. “I’ve got the worst sense of humor this side of dark space. I’m talking dick jokes. _All_ the dick jokes. And I never learned to pick up after myself. You’ll be begging for me to leave, soon.”

Reyes’s smile widened to encompass both sides of his mouth.

“We’re going to regret this, aren’t we?”

“Yep.” Ryder grinned, too, and unwrapped his arms from around the chair to stretch, all long limbs and hard muscle with sparse scruff tactically sprinkled on top. This time, Reyes didn’t even bother to pretend he wasn’t ogling.

Three days.

He knew what he wanted. In three days, he’d have a plan how to get it. Planning happened to be something he excelled at. And now, more than ever, he intended to apply himself to the extent of his ingenuity.

Sometimes a minute was all it took to change a man’s life. In three days... anything could happen. Including making sure that, God and Pathfinder willing, at least a few crazy pipe dreams of his had a chance of coming true.

“I could use a shower,” Ryder said, short nails scritch-scratching the hair on his chest. Still blushing under the appreciation, but no longer quite so embarrassed by it — and a good thing, too, since Reyes had no intention of stopping any time soon. “A warm one. I’ve got no idea what to do with that weird heater downstairs. Almost froze my nuts off earlier.”

“It’s angaran,” Reyes said. “I’ll show you how it works.”

A slow, sly smile was his reply.

“Wash my back?”

He was screwed.

He was so screwed.

And he had a bad feeling he was going to love every minute of it.

.

.

_Kadara Port, three weeks later_

Somewhere between ‘wow, this thing must be a hundred years old’ and ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake’, the elevator shuddered to a stop and the lights went out, leaving Ryder standing alone in absolute darkness.

“SAM?” He tucked the cap he was holding under his arm and, with a gloved hand, tapped at his omni-tool. Pale white light revealed the ancient metal box around him. “What’s going on?”

After the brief pause the AI needed to patch into some available network and find out, it replied. “Port-wide brownout measures are in effect. This elevator appears to be considered non-essential in the event of a power shortage.”

“Great.”

Ryder glanced to where a bleak metal slate separated him from whatever waited at the top. _Dress code: formal,_ was all he knew. Except for the fact that wherever he was headed, it was located high above the rest of Kadara Port.

He was just about to address SAM again when his omni-tool emitted a signature melodic alarm. After suppressing the inevitable attack of butterflies, Ryder activated his commlink.

“Hey,” he piped into it, an octave higher than normal. Still nervous, after several weeks of trying to overcome that very reaction.

_“Please tell me you’re not stuck in the elevator.”_

“I’m stuck in the elevator.”

His translator allowed a mild Spanish curse through untouched.

 _“There’s a generator._ _People are trying to get it up and running._ _It may take a while, so I hope enclosed spaces are not something you find too unpleasant.”_

“Hey, I’m a spacer. This thing’s bigger than some of the rooms I’ve bunked in. I’ve got stories.”

The man at the other end chuckled. Even through the commlink, the sound sent a shiver down Ryder’s spine. _“I’d love to hear them.”_

After the line went silent, Ryder almost slumped against a wall. But... the metal looked dirty, and it had taken over two hours to get everything on him squared away. He’d never forgive himself if he ruined the results of his (and Gil’s, and Vetra’s) hard work before he could even show them off.

Not that a large part of him wasn’t still convinced he looked like a total dumbass.

The slack-jawed reactions on his way through the port had been less than reassuring to that end. Adik, too, had stared at him as if he had a mushroom growing from his forehead, after they ran into each other in the bar downstairs. As it happened, the sentiment had been mutual. Instead of her usual armor, Reyes’s bodyguard had been wearing a sleek biker jacket, jeans and tall boots, her afro teased into a thick coil down the back of her head. At a guess, she was carrying two pistols hidden in shoulder holsters and more than one knife. Ready for a girls’ night out on Kadara, no doubt.

After getting over her surprise, Adik had graced him with a disgusted onceover. Then, amazingly, she’d addressed him.

“So you’re a jarhead. Should’ve guessed.”

“Adik!” Ryder had cracked his most disarming smile. “Great to see you looking so well. I heard you got the night off. Where’re you headed?”

“None of your business, Nexus.” With a nod, she’d struck a path past him without even shouldering him out of the way too hard.

Oh, yeah. She practically loved him.

“Scott,” SAM said, in the elevator that still refused to budge. “Since we seem to have a moment at our hands, may I posit a question?”

“Go ahead.”

“We have already established that you’ve missed Mr. Vidal since we left Kadara after our last visit twenty-two standard days ago. I’m also under the impression that a ‘date’ is considered to be a highly desirable event. Yet I’m picking up clear markers of a fight-or-flight response from your vitals. Given your usual optimism, such a reaction seems paradoxical.”

Oh, hell. How to even start to explain his current mental state to someone who completely lacked the ability to experience it?

“Nerves, SAM. Most humans have them.”

“Yes, but I struggle to understand the reason for your apprehension. I believe it is safe to assume that Mr. Vidal very much wishes to continue his romantic involvement with you.”

“No, that’s —” Ryder blew out a breath. “I’m not exactly used to any of this, you know.”

“Are you perhaps concerned about your sexual performance?”

Ryder opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “What... makes you think that, SAM?”

“On our previous visit to Kadara, you reached orgasm on twenty-three separate occasions. Excluding the times you’ve since masturbated to Mr. Vidal’s voice over the comm, these orgasms took, on average, thirty-five seconds of direct penile stimulation to achieve. Based on my research, this falls within the diagnostic range for premature ejaculation — a condition which often causes anxiety for affected penis owners.”

Ryder pinched the bridge of his nose.

SAM forged on. “As you know, I’m capable of regulating your endocrine levels and peripheral nervous system. I might be able to help, Scott.”

Why was it taking so long to turn on a damn generator...?

“Thanks, SAM,” Ryder choked out. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Your wellbeing is my first priority. I would be happy to assist,” the AI chimed even as the elevator car chose to finally start moving again.

When the doors slid open on what looked like the deserted lobby to a small hotel, Ryder’s face was still feeling rather warm.

Going by the lack of light, the brownout was still in effect. From somewhere deeper, music drifted — soft jazz with a woman’s sensual voice floating on top. A recording, no doubt. A professional horn section seemed like something hard to find in Andromeda.

No sooner than Ryder had stepped inside, a lean, masculine silhouette in a doorway caught his gaze. Out of his omni-tool light’s reach, the man stood with his shoulder to the doorframe, outlined in mellow golden glow from behind. Smoke curled from a cigarette in his right hand.

 _Oh, no. He’s wearing a suit._ Some dark color for what Ryder could see, well fitted over a graceful flare of shoulder and long leg. The guy inside took a pull from his smoke and, with eyes that could be felt rather than seen in the dusk, assessed Ryder who, thanks to his omni-tool light, was well in sight.

 _“Buenas noches,”_ Reyes said, the husky barroom drawl of his voice in perfect line with the noir figure he cut. “What brings you to my humble establishment, Sergeant?”

Mouth suddenly too dry to speak, even to resort to a joke in self-defense, Ryder adjusted the cap under his arm and shifted in his polished shoes.

He desperately needed to eliminate the distance between them, but Reyes’s deliberate, heavy gaze pinned him where he stood. All he could do was sweat and swallow and try not to fidget like an idiot while he remembered. Everything. In so much detail. How Reyes had felt against him. _Inside_ him. All that skin, cool and smooth against his too-hot one, even more beautifully golden brown than he’d imagined. And Reyes’ skillful hands and mouth, giving him more pleasure than he’d —

Not a moment too soon, a click and a hum announced the end of the brownout. The lights went on, just enough to reveal the small lobby and the two men in it.

It seemed as if someone had turned on the oxygen. Not all the way, but enough for Ryder to stop feeling faint. Thank fuck for the thick layers of fabric he’d cursed on his way through the port that still radiated the day’s heat from its maze-like corridors. Now they were all that stood between him and the abject embarrassment of revealing exactly how much he liked what he saw.

At least the feeling appeared to be mutual, going by how Reyes couldn’t tear his eyes away from him.

“My God. How did you get your hands on dress blues?”

“Dad’s closet,” Ryder said and switched off his omni-tool flashlight. “He brought both our dress uniforms from the Milky Way. Sara’s and mine. We think he planned to put them on display, somewhere.”

“Or perhaps he was prouder of your service than you realized.”

“Yeah, well. Who knows, with Dad. Anyway, this is the only truly formal thing I own. I don’t exactly have uniform privileges left but... back home, this has got to belong in a museum.” _If museums still exist, that is. Or people who could visit them._

Another long gaze. Another drag from the cigarette.

“You look fantastic. I’m enjoying myself.”

“Good. Because this thing’s damned uncomfortable.” Ryder tugged at his stiff collar with a gloved finger, trying and failing to pretend he wasn’t feeling hot and bothered from the way he was being looked at. Impressing Reyes had been his goal all along, so he wasn’t going to complain, but he hadn’t counted on how _he_ would react. At this rate, he’d never be able to look at his own service blues again without getting a hardon.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“Come. I’ll show you.”

Ryder went and took the hand that was offered. And by it, found himself pulled into a kiss that filled his head with the taste and smell of whiskey and tobacco and Reyes. It went on, and on —

By the time Reyes let him breathe again, the small tightening in his shorts had turned into a much bigger one. He could only hope that his choice of clothes continued to afford him the semblance of dignity. Reyes, on the other hand, appeared perfectly composed... as always.

Well, almost always. Ryder had seen him lose that perfect control, a few times. And —  shit. Now he was thinking about it again. Could he be any more useless...?

With a hand at the small of his back, Reyes guided him into the softly lit space beyond.

It was... well. It was a bar. But not like any other bar Ryder had so far seen in Andromeda. It felt like stepping into an old Earth movie. Tables and chairs hugged the walls, some of them obviously meant for gambling. A spotless counter spanned the back, glass glittering like jewels behind it. From an invisible sound system, velvety jazz continued to play. Only the otherworldly view over the distant nighttime landscape seemed slightly out of place — though it was far too beautiful to be called a flaw.

A table for two claimed the best spot, furnished with a white cloth and a candle burning in a holder, wine cooler and two stemmed glasses beside it.

They were the only people in the room.

“Huh,” Ryder said, wits diminished by how Reyes’s hand kept kneading at his back. “Is it open for business?”

“It is.”

“Then... where’s everyone?”

“I told the staff to keep the place empty.”

“You own this joint?”

The smile Reyes directed at the room seemed to convey amused pride.

“I’ve always wanted to run a smoky gin dive. With people getting established, there’s now a market for something a little more upscale. Also, I need a safe place to entertain guests in the port.”

“I admit, I would’ve wagered you’d just buy out Tartarus.”

“Oh, please. Cheap lap dancers? Brawls? Vomit and desperation? Can you really see me owning that hellhole?”

“Kian refused to sell?”

“Kian refused to sell.” Reyes sighed. “I sincerely hope you don’t think I’d take you to Tartarus for a date.”

“Nah, I’m starting to understand that under that hard-nosed act, you’re a total snob.”

Reyes smiled at him, voice dropping a note. “Well, what can I say. If the best is available... why should I settle for less?”

Dammit. When would he stop blushing like a dope from a little smooth talk?

“Now.” Reyes stepped away to stub out his cigarette and brought up his omni-tool. “There is something I want to do.”

“You’re up to something. Again,” Ryder complained even as the song playing in the background changed and the volume increased.

“I said I wanted to fix the mistake of neglecting you on our first date. Will you allow me to do that?” Reyes raised his left hand.

_Oh, no. No, no..._

“I really don’t —”

With the practiced ease of someone who knew very well what they were doing, Reyes laughed and pulled him to the middle of the room.

“Relax. It’s not the Argentine tango,” he said and tugged in his alarmed date. Ryder, who had a depressingly vague idea what a tango was, let alone an Argentine one, flushed hot when their bodies pressed together.

 _This is bad. Very bad._ Well, the pressing their bodies together part was good, but — what the hell were his feet supposed to do? And where was he supposed to put his left hand, which still held his cover? In alarm, he flopped the peaked cap on his head and placed his gloved paw on Reyes’ shoulder.

“I apologize in advance,” he said. “For stepping on your toes. I got two left feet and I weigh more than I look. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Just so you know, this is way more terrifying than facing the Archon. Okay, I’m gonna shut up now.”

Reyes simply laughed again, in that deep, warm manner that never failed to make Ryder’s insides flutter. Somehow, they were already swaying to the music. How had that happened...? Damn, the guy was good.

If only the same could have been said about Ryder’s dancing. The waddle he managed was about as graceful as a robot in an old sci-fi flick. Appearing like he didn’t care would’ve done, too... but that particular skill had never quite made its way into his bag of tricks, either.

It would have taken him longer to get over his panic, had Reyes’s proximity not been so damned distracting. Through the white faux kid of his gloves and whatever Reyes’ suit and his uniform were made of, Ryder could sense Reyes’s body moving close to his own. Which meant that in about five seconds, he was sporting two left feet _and_ a massive boner.

Great. Well, at least he’d lost the brain capacity required to feel terrified.

“I missed you,” he blurted.

The mischievous glint in Reyes’s eye softened into a look that made Ryder feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

“I missed you, too.”

“A lot,” Ryder emphasized, embarrassed about the desperate edge to his words. “So... I did what you suggested.”

“Oh?”

“I told Tann that from now on, I’ll decide where I spend my downtime. The Ark’s being repurposed, so I’m not sure I technically even have a home base, anymore.”

“And what did Tann say?”

“Who cares. It’s not like he can fire me.”

Reyes hummed. “I applaud this emerging understanding of your clout, _cariño._ But the cost of moving the Tempest —”

“I can count. But... Kadara’s not that far from Meridian. Right? I mean, the kett have been letting up, and the Initiative’s not a military operation. I’ve got rights. And a shuttle.”

The smile that lit Reyes’s handsome face was everything.

“I wish I could’ve seen Tann’s face.”

“Well, SAM has recordings.”

“Have I told you today that you are amazing?”

Ryder laughed, a little bashful, and ducked his head. Had he really once thought that this cheesy sweet-talker was just trying to dupe him? The butterflies in his stomach were in process of transforming into something that belonged on Havarl.

“You’re going to keep saying things like that, aren’t you?”

“Relentlessly, if you’ll allow me.”

Ryder shook his head. “Well, you’re the owner of the only dogs in Andromeda, so... I don’t know how I can refuse.”

“So that’s what did it.” Reyes clucked his tongue. “Very well, I accept my fate as something below canines and Blast-Ohs in order of importance. We have a second litter now, by the way. If you’d like, I can take you to see them. Tequila has grown to be a handful. Reminds me of someone else I know.”

For a moment, they just danced. The song flowed into another. To his amazement, Ryder was starting to relax. So far, he hadn’t either fallen on his face or mangled anyone’s toes, and if Reyes was laughing in secret at his non-existent sense of rhythm, he couldn’t tell.

“I assume your friends know all about us by now,” Reyes said.

“Oh, yeah.” Ryder couldn’t help wincing at just how much they knew.

“I get the impression they care a lot about you.”

“If that’s a code expression for sticking their nose into things that are none of their concern, then yeah. They care.”

First, it had been just Lexi, asking him to be careful while jabbing him with hypos after he’d returned to Meridian. Then Jaal had hit him with the question — and since the angaran sense of privacy was... different, soon after that, _everyone_ knew. His sister included. Which meant that, for a while, things had turned interesting. Where ‘interesting’ stood for sighing, eye rolling, ‘why didn’t you tell me before’ -ing and other obnoxious big sistering. And not just from Sara, either.

“So, this business about having more say about where to spend your downtime,” Reyes said. “Does it mean you’ll be needing a place to stay?”

“So it seems. Any ideas?”

“Several. But Scott... other people than your crew are going to find out. Are you sure you can live with that?”

This again...? At least Reyes had moved on from the idea that nothing should happen between them because it might hurt Ryder’s squeaky clean image. Now he just seemed to think that Ryder would run for the hills as soon as the first bit of scuttlebutt reached his ears.

“Are you?” Ryder asked.

“I believe my reputation only stands to gain from this association. Yours, however —”

“I don’t care.”

“You say that now, _osito,_ but once the rumors begin —”

“I don’t care. I — I’m in love with you.”

Oh, fuck. That was so not what he’d meant to say.

The tiniest fumble when taking the next step, a slight widening of beautiful hazel eyes — but if Ryder had expected his confession to fluster the damned man beyond that, he’d been wrong. In seconds, Reyes was his usual suave self again.

Still, perhaps Ryder was finally beginning to know his lover a little better, because he could tell that behind that smooth, controlled surface, something now burned warmer.

“That’s good,” Reyes said, his words a soft rumble. “Because if you weren’t, _mi alma,_ you would very soon tire of hearing exactly how much I adore you.”

Ryder couldn’t help laughing.

“Nothing fazes you, does it?”

“Oh, I remember being fazed. Spectacularly.” The hand at the small of Ryder’s back tucked him closer, even as Reyes’s voice deepened even further. “I look forward to it happening again. Soon, I hope.”

“Now?” Ryder blurted, his own vocals climbing again. “Some of those tables seem pretty sturdy. I know you got plans, you always do, but truth be told, I’m kind of dying here, so if you don’t mind —”

As propositions went, Ryder was sure more eloquent ones had been made in the history of mankind. But since this one got him fucked in his dress blues on top of a blackjack table, he wasn’t about to judge it too harshly.

Eventually, they made it through the rest of the evening, with wine and vat-grown steak and discreet servers who politely ignored Ryder’s mortified blushes at the thought that someone in the back might have heard his uncontrollable moans. It was a good date. And so was the night that followed. And waking up in the morning to a harassed head of a clandestine organization working next to him in the bed, datapads scattered around... well, that was pretty good, too. Of course, just when Ryder had convinced Reyes to take a break, Tiran Kandros insisted on calling him about a situation with some raiders. But if things had been perfect —

If things had been perfect...

If things had been perfect, Tann would have sent someone else back to Kadara to negotiate. Ryder wouldn’t have found out how Reyes truly felt about him, or that Reyes wasn’t as evil as he’d believed. In a perfect world, they might never even have met, because Alec Ryder would never have encountered a sudden end on Habitat 7.

But life wasn’t perfect. It had made Ryder into a Pathfinder, brought him to Kadara, and introduced him to the man he would then — against the whole world telling him not to — proceed to fall hopelessly in love with. Life had led him into that cave with Sloane Kelly and denouncing Reyes as a selfish, cold-blooded monster, when the truth was something far more complicated. Life was a sum of accidents and sometimes, hard work. If you got lucky, you had more reason to laugh than cry about it. If you got very lucky, you didn’t have to navigate it alone.

For Scott Ryder, for now, not perfect was perfectly enough.

~ FIN ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading. And thanks to my betas Alessariel, Oleander's One and BlueTeaParty, I love you guys.
> 
> Since I've been thinking that supporting my favorite fan artists might be a good idea, here's a commission from xla-hainex I had made for the dancing scene:
> 
> [Tumblr link](http://phoenike.tumblr.com/post/173997430363/i-have-never-commissioned-anyone-just-enjoyed)


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